Gigged Page 21

  21   Irani, Lilly C., and M. Six Silberman. Turkopticon: Interrupting Worker Invisibility in Amazon Mechanical Turk. UC Irvine, Department of Informatics Bureau of Economic Interpretation. 2013.

  22   Berg, Janine. Income Security in the On-Demand Economy: Findings and Policy Lessons from a Survey of Crowdworkers. International Labour Office. 2016. http://www.ilo.org/travail/whatwedo/publications/WCMS_479693/lang—en/index.htm.

  23   Samasource. Final Learnings Report to the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. August 2017.

  24   Wenzl, Tracy. How I Made over $1,000 on Upwork in My First Week. LinkedIn. March 16, 2016. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-i-made-over-1000-upwork-my-first-week-tracy-wenzl/. And Jorgovan, Jake. How to Make $1,000+ per Week on Upwork. Jake-Jorgovan.com. June 1, 2014. https://jake-jorgovan.com/blog/how-to-make-1000-per-week-on-odesk.

  25   Sundararajan, Arun. The Sharing Economy. MIT Press, 2016, page 168.

  26   Burke, Adrienne. Furloughed? Try Freelancing on Fiverr. Yahoo! Small Business. https://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/blogs/profit-minded/furloughed-try-freelancing-fiverr-145054277.html.

  27   Fiverr press release. Fiverr Poll Says a Freelance Economy Works.October 10, 2013. https://www.fiverr.com/news/economy_poll_work_examiner.

  28   Doleac, Jennifer L., and Luke C. D. Stein. The Visible Hand: Race and Online Market Outcomes. The Economic Journal, vol. 123. November 2013. Pages F469–F492.

  CHAPTER 9

  1   Farr, Christina. Why Homejoy Failed. Backchannel. September 26, 2015. https://www.wired.com/2015/10/why-homejoy-failed/#.3ifz7wf0m.

  2   Q&A with Saman Rahmanian, CEO and Founder, Tischen. StartupBeat. December 7, 2010. https://startupbeat.com/2010/12/qa-with-saman-rahmanian-ceo-and-founder-tischen/.

  3   Barack Obama speech on May 22, 2007, at The Electric Factory, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

  4   Shontell, Alyson. Q Raises $775,000 from Bit-Time Angel Investors to Become a Godsend for Office Managers Everywhere. Business Insider. August 11, 2014. http://www.businessinsider.com/q-raises-775000-to-make-cleaning-an-office-easy-to-schedule-and-manage-2014-8.

  5   Ton, Zeynep. The Good Jobs Strategy: How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profits. New Harvest, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014, pages vii, viii.

  6   Ibid., page 73.

  7   Griswold, Alison. Dirty Work. Slate. July 24, 2015. http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2015/07/handy_a_hot_startup_for_home_cleaning_has_a_big_mess_of_its_own.html.

  8   Ton, The Good Jobs Strategy, page 67.

  9   Manjoo, Farhad. Start-Ups Finding the Best Employees Are Actually Employed. New York Times. June 24, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/technology/personaltech/start-ups-finding-the-best-employees-are-actually-employed.html?mtrref=www.google.com.

  10   Reavis, Cate, and Zeynep Ton. Managed by Q. MIT Sloan School of Management, May 24, 2016, page 1. https://mitsloan.mit.edu/LearningEdge/operations-management/managedbyq/Pages/Managed-by-Q.aspx.

  11   New York State Department of Labor. Occupational Wages. 2015.

  12   Morea, Stephen. Janitorial Service in the US. IBISWorld Industry Report. August 2015.

  13   Reavis and Ton, Managed by Q, page 6.

  14   Ibid., page 8.

  15   O’Brien, Ashley. Startup Banks $15M in Quest to Be “Best Employer.” CNN. June 18, 2015. http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/18/technology/managed-by-q-funding/index.html.

  16   Li, Shan. Start-Up Washio Shuts Down. Los Angeles Times. August 30, 2016. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-washio-startup-20160830-snap-story.html.

  17   Cited in TrueBridge Capital Partners. The Gig Is Up: The Real Value of Gig Economy Startups Isn’t the Model—It’s the Supply. Forbes. August 10, 2016. https://www.forbes.com/sites/truebridge/2016/08/10/the-real-value-of-gig-economy-startups/#1fafc0e4460c.

  18   Kessler, Sarah. Why a New Generation of On-Demand Businesses Rejected the Uber Model. Fast Company. March 29, 2016. https://www.fastcompany.com/3058299/why-a-new-generation-of-on-demand-businesses-rejected-the-uber-model.

  19   Gibbon, Kevin. Why Our Couriers Are No Longer Contractors. LinkedIn. July 1, 2015. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-our-couriers-longer-contractors-kevin-gibbon/.

  CHAPTER 10

  1   Smiley, Lauren. The Shut-In Economy. Matter. March 25, 2015. https://medium.com/matter/the-shut-in-economy-ec3ec1294816.

  2   Griswold, Alison. There’s Still One Thing People Like about Uber. Quartz. June 8, 2017. https://qz.com/1000962/uber-is-a-mess-but-it-still-offers-a-great-ride-hailing-service/.

  3   Camp, Garrett. Uber’s Path Forward. Medium. June 20, 2017. https://medium.com/@gc/ubers-path-forward-b59ec9bd4ef6.

  4   Email exchange with Ethan Pollack on December 16, 2017.

  5   Campbell, Harry. What It’s Like to Be at Uber’s Mercy. Splinter. February 9, 2015. https://splinternews.com/what-its-like-to-be-at-ubers-mercy-1793845146.

  6   In a blog post on Medium, Uber said that tips could be prone to personal bias and encourage drivers to spend time in wealthy neighborhoods. But also it thought customers didn’t like tips. “Riders tell us that one of the things they like most about Uber is that it’s hassle-free,” the company wrote. “And that’s how we intend to keep it.” https://medium.com/uber-under-the-hood/our-approach-to-tipping-aa0074c0fddc.

  7   Rideshare Dashboard. Uber Increases Minimum Fares in 20 Cities. August 31, 2016. http://ridesharedashboard.com/2016/08/31/uber-increases-minimum-fares-20-cities/.

  8   Raile, Dan. The Medium Is the Movement: Abe Husein Is a Labor Leader for Our Times. Pando. October 21, 2015. https://pando.com/2015/10/21/medium-movement-abe-husein-labor-leader-our-times/.

  9   Strike Planned: Some Uber Drivers to Stay Off Roads This Weekend. NBC Washington. October 17, 2015. http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Uber-Strike-Some-Uber-Drivers-Plan-to-Stay-Off-Roads-This-Weekend-333219631.html.

  10   Meyerson, Harold. The Forty-Year Slump. American Prospect. November 12, 2013. http://prospect.org/article/40-year-slump.

  11   Abbruzzesse, Jason. Uber Drivers Plan a Three-Day National Strike to Call for Higher Fares. Mashable. October 16, 2015. http://mashable.com/2015/10/16/uber-driver-strike/#J9CNV2Tmfmq2.

  12   Uber Newsroom. Beating the Winter Slump: Price Cuts for Riders and Guaranteed Fares for Drivers. January 9, 2016. https://newsroom.uber.com/beating-the-winter-slump-price-cuts-for-riders-and-guaranteed-earnings-for-drivers/.

  13   Santora, Marc, and John Surico. Uber Drivers in New York City Protest Fare Cuts. New York Times. February 1, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/nyregion/uber-drivers-in-new-york-city-protest-fare-cuts.html?_r=3.

  14   Alba, Davey. Angry Uber Drivers Threaten to Make a Mess of the Super Bowl. Wired. February 6, 2016. http://www.wired.com/2016/02/uber-drivers-protest-san-francisco-super-bowl/.

  15   Alexander, Kurtis. Police Defuse Uber Protest Outside Super Bowl. SFGate. February 7, 2016. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Police-defuse-Uber-protest-outside-Super-Bowl-6814223.php.

  16   Fair Crowd Work. Ombuds Office for German Crowdsourcing Platforms Established. November 8, 2017. http://faircrowd.work/2017/11/08/ombudsstelle-fuer-crowdworking-plattformen-vereinbart/.

  17   Wiessner, Daniel, and Dan Levine. Uber Deal Shows Divide in Labor’s Drive for Role in “Gig Economy.” Reuters. May 23, 2016.

  18   Scheiber, Noam, and Mike Isaac. Uber Recognizes New York Drivers’ Group, Short of a Union. New York Times. May 10, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/11/technology/uber-agrees-to-union-deal-in-new-york.html.

  19   Green, Carla, and Sam Levine. Homeless, Assaulted, Broke: Drivers Left behind as Uber Promises Change at the Top. The Guardian. June 17, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/17/uber-drivers-homel
ess-assault-travis-kalanick.

  20   Salehi, Niloufar, Lilly Irani, Michael S. Bernstein, Ali Alkhatib, Eva Ogbe, Kristy Milland, and Clickhappier. We Are Dynamo: Overcoming Stalling and Friction in Collective Action for Crowd Workers. Paper presented at the meeting of the CHI. 2015.

  21   Bohannon, John. Psychologists Grow Increasingly Dependent on Online Research Subjects. Science Magazine. June 7, 2016. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/06/psychologists-grow-increasingly-dependent-online-research-subjects.

  22   Pörtner, Claus C., Nail Hassairi, and Michael Toomin. Only If You Pay Me More: Field Experiments Support Compensating Wage Differentials Theory. Working paper. October 2015. http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53c31c5ce4b053fc7d131b18/t/56405d98e4b07bcd9d9704a1/1447058840358/Portner+-+compensating+wage+differentials.pdf.

  23   Salehi et al. We Are Dynamo.

  24   Harris, Mark. Amazon Mechanical Turk Workers Protest: “I Am a Human Being, Not an Algorithm.” The Guardian. December 3, 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/03/amazon-mechanical-turk-workers-protest-jeff-bezos.

  25   Katz, Miranda. Amazon’s Turker Crowd Has Had Enough. Wired. August 23, 2017. https://www.wired.com/story/amazons-turker-crowd-has-had-enough/.

  26   The traditional unions that once helped create the American middle class have nowhere near as much influence today as they once did. Only about 11% of the workforce (and just 6.6% of the non-government workforce) belonged to a union in 2016, compared to about 20% in 1983 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Union membership as a percentage of employed wage and salary workers), and the growing group of independent workers like Kristy, Curtis, Abe, and Terrence’s students fall outside of union organizing rights altogether. Dynamo was not the only idea for how to organize these workers outside of the traditional union system.

  A website called Coworker attempted to create online groups of workers and help them petition their employers. Starbucks employees used it to campaign for a policy change that allowed for visible tattoos and went on to win wage increases, scheduling improvements, and changes to parental leave policies. (Horovitz, Bruce. Tattoos, Nose Studs OK for Starbucks Baristas. USA Today. October 16, 2014. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/10/16/starbucks-tattoos-nose-studs-baristas-dress-code/17369455/.)

  The National Domestic Workers Alliance, a worker advocacy group, organized nannies, elder caretakers, home cleaners, and other domestic workers, all of whom tended to be independent contractors. Instead of union dues, the organization mostly ran on grants.

  A non-traditional union founded in 2003, called the Freelancers Union, advocated for another form of support for independent workers. It partnered with insurance companies on dental, life, and disability insurance plans sold to freelancers, as well as a retirement plan. It also ran two medical clinics in New York for members of its insurance plan, which provided access to unlimited primary care with a $0 co-pay and free acupuncture, nutritional counseling, yoga, Tai Chi classes, and stress-management programs. The idea was that, as with the AARP and Planned Parenthood, services would attract members and fund advocacy work.

  None of these efforts could grow as quickly as companies backed by millions (sometimes billions) of dollars in venture capital. But they were a start.

  CHAPTER 11

  1   Katz, Lawrence F., and Alan B. Krueger. The Rise and Nature of Alternative Work Arrangements in the United States, 1995–2015. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 22667. 2016. http://www.nber.org/papers/w22667.

  2   Good Work: The Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices. Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. July 2017. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/good-work-the-taylor-review-of-modern-working-practices.

  3   Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Frequently Requested Data. Workers with Pension Coverage by Type of Plan, 1983, 1992, 2001, and 2013. http://crr.bc.edu/wp-content/uploads/1012/01/figure-15.pdf.

  4   401(k) plans are employer-sponsored retirement savings accounts in which employees can contribute pay before it’s taxed. Some employers, but not all, match some portion of the contributions that employees make to these accounts.

  5   Munnell, Alicia H., and Mauricio Soto. The Outlook for Pension Contributions and Profits. U.S. Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, vol. 3, no. 1. 2004. Presumably, over time, wages will rise to make up the difference, but when a group of researchers at Boston College looked at a group of otherwise healthy companies that had frozen their pension plans—including Coca-Cola, IBM, Verizon, and Hewlett-Packard—they determined savings were the biggest motivation. “The logic must be that cutting pensions will cause less commotion than cutting cash wages,” they wrote.

  6   Bureau of Labor Statistics News Release. Employee Benefits in the United States—March 2017. July 21, 2017.

  7   A high number of graduates looking for work, but not eligible for unemployment benefits, and people who have been unemployed longer than the maximum amount of time allowed contributed, but also, nine states cut back on the 26-week duration. North Carolina cut it down to 14 weeks. McHugh, Rick, and Will Kimball. How Long Can We Go? State Unemployment Insurance Programs Exclude Record Numbers of Jobless Workers. Economic Policy Institute. Briefing Paper #392. March 9, 2015.

  8   Berg, Janine. Income Security in the On-Demand Economy: Findings and Policy Lessons from a Survey of Crowdworkers. International Labour Office. 2016.

  9   Kaiser Family Foundation. 2015 Employer Health Benefits Survey.

  10   Ibid.

  11   Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employee Benefits Survey. March 2015. https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2015/ownership/civilian/table09a.htm.

  12   Is the Affordable Care Act Working? New York Times. Interactive article produced by Troy Griggs, Haeyoun Park, Alicia Parlapiano, Sona Patel, Karl Russell, and R. Smith. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/27/us/is-the-affordable-care-act-working.html?_r=1#/uninsured.

  13   Dynan, Karen, Douglas Elmendorf, and Daniel Sichel. The Evolution of Household Income Volatility. B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy. December 18, 2012. https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bejeap.2012.12.issue-2/1935-1682.3347/1935-1682.3347.xml?format=INT.

  14   Federal Reserve Board. Report on the Economic Well-Being of US Households. July 2014.

  15   Gosselin, Peter G. If America Is Richer, Why Are Its Families So Much Less Secure? Los Angeles Times. October 10, 2004. http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-riskshift10oct10-story.html.

  16   Hanauer, Nick, and David Rolf. Shared Security, Shared Growth. Democracy, no. 37. Summer 2015. http://democracyjournal.org/magazine/37/shared-security-shared-growth/.

  17   Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2015. May 2016.

  18   Economists generally agree that in the long term, businesses pass their share of payroll taxes onto employees by paying lower wages. If they’re asked to pay 7% of wages to fund retirement payments and other social programs, for instance, they’ll reduce worker pay by 7%. In this scenario, the worker fares the same either way. But as it plays out in the real world, employers hesitate to cut wages immediately, so workers benefit from the increased commitment of employers to pay into social programs in the short term and possibly longer, if the decrease in pay would make the job uncompetitive. Portable benefits, however they were structured, seemed to many like the best chance to support workers without traditional jobs. As Ethan Pollack, the associate director of research and policy at the Aspen Institute, explains it: “If you mandated a 25% contribution [from employers], worker payments would likely not immediately go down by 25%. Now, the fact that they are contractors rather than [employees] probably means that the wages are less sticky, and therefore will adjust downward somewhat in the near term. But it’s unlikely they’ll adjust downward by the full 25%. So in the near term, businesses will s
hare in the burden.”

  19   Kessler, Sarah. US Senator Mark Warner Proposed a $20 Million Fund to Experiment with Portable Benefits for Freelancers and Gig Economy Workers. Quartz. May 25, 2017. https://qz.com/991270/us-senator-mark-warner-proposed-a-20-million-fund-to-experiment-with-portable-benefits-for-freelancers-gig-economy-workers-and-contractors/.

  20   Mccabe, David, and Tim Devaney. Hillary Clinton’s Uber Problem. The Hill. July 24, 2015. http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/248999-hillary-clintons-uber-problem.

  21   Remarks by Senator Elizabeth Warren. Strengthening the Basic Bargain for Workers in the Modern Economy. New America Annual Conference. May 19, 2016. https://www.warren.senate.gov/files/documents/2016-5-19_Warren_New_America_Remarks.pdf.

  22   Grenoble, Ryan. Elizabeth Warren Takes on Uber, Lyft and the “Gig Economy.” Huffington Post. May 19, 2016.