After decades of attrition, the union movement is having a moment. In the US, the fight for a $15 minimum wage has reinvigorated the movement and globally, the rise of the gig worker is seeing a new, global movement emerge. A lot of this movement is focused on the food delivery industry. While there are a number of different companies and platforms operating around the world – Uber Eats, Zomato, Deliveroo, Door Dash, Meituan – the experience of delivery workers is universal. Insecure work, low wages, high costs, and no bargaining power.
In response, the global union movement is working to organise gig workers to try and reform the industry. Amongst the workers surveyed for this article, 48% said they’re now part of a formal group or union and 49% said they had participated in strikes or other industrial action. The challenge for this movement is they are going up against global and largely-automated platforms. And these platforms have shown they’re willing to strongly resist any efforts to increase regulation and worker protections in the sector. When California introduced Proposition 22, a law to reclassify gig-economy workers as independent contracts, Uber and Lyft reportedly spent over $200 million to resist the law (the law was eventually approved, although was then ruled unconstitutional by a US court). This fight isn’t going anywhere and we should expect to see more reports of a global gig-economy movement pushing back on the working conditions of these giant platforms.
This is an excerpt from our Thought Starters email. Once a week we send you 5 interesting articles that have caught our attention, to get you thinking. No spam, we guarantee.