Work in Global Society

Topic 5 From ‘job for life’ to the ‘Gig economy’

 Objectives
◉ Understand notions of work and changes in the perspective of work
throughout different historical periods

◉ Recognize the temporal nature, and incomplete assessment, of analyzing

changes to work from a ‘job-for-life’ paradigm

◉ Appreciate the ideological and economic forces that have been re-shaping
work in 20th and 21st century

◉ Comprehend the basic elements underpinning the emergence of the ’gig’

economy

◉ Understand the core concepts and structures of the ‘gig economy’

◉ Recognize some of the implications of ‘gig’ work from a worker’s and

societal perspective

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 Why do we work?

Subsistence
activity

“The most common conception of work is that it is

any activity which is directly or indirectly centred
around the goal of subsistence. It is comprised of
the activities one performs to make a living” Social
Psychological-
Social activity
Importance of
Work

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 Conceptualization of Work

Max Weber - ‘The Protestant John Maynard Keynes -

Work Ethic and the Spirit of ‘Economic Possibilities for our
Capitalism’ (1905) Grandchildren’ (1931)

◉ Work as a duty ◉ Work is a means to an ends

◉ Protestant work ethic ◉ 15 hours of work a week

◉ Work driven by religious ◉ The rise and rise of leisure

convictions time

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Conceptualization of Work 2

(Budd 2010)
 The Historical Evolution of Work

Feudal Post-
Merchant Industrial
society industrial
capitalism revolution
society

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 Merchant Capitalism

Economic logic for “putting-out” work

◉ Merchants ‘put out’ materials to craftsmen and sold products

◉ Craft workers became subcontractors

◉ Social relations of work changed

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 Merchant Capitalism 2

a 5 rationales that influenced

“putting-out” decisions of
merchants:
1.Role of investment and capital
All of these
intensive technology;
decisions have
2.Need to supervise the work; continued
3.Risk of collective action; relevance for the
4.Flexibility of the product ‘Uberization’ of
market; work in the ‘gig
economy’
5.Control of labor costs and the
avoidance of regulation
(Finkin 2016)

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The “Putting out” system
◉ This system enabled mercantile capitalism from a quite early stage
to take advantage of the surplus of cheap labour in the
countryside.

◉ The rural artisan worked at home

◉ Raw materials were provided by the merchant in town

◉ Thus, combined town and country, craft and farming, industrial and
family labour, and at the top, mercantile and industrial capitalism.
The “Putting out” system 2
◉ To the artisan, it meant a life that was balanced if not exactly
peaceful;

◉ To the entrepreneur, it meant the possibility of keeping fixed

capital costs down and more particularly of coping with the
frequent gaps in demand

◉ “In an economy where it was demand, not supply, which

restricted industrial output, out-working provided industry with
the necessary elasticity. It could be halted or restarted at a word
of command.”

(Braudel cited in Finkin 2016)

Industrial Revolution
Shift towards factories & use
machinery

◉ Division of labour

◉ Mechanization of work

◉ Greater control over labour

◉ Industrial discipline

◉ Position of workers deteriorated

◉ Increased productivity
The Industrial Revolution
Everything was changed by the Industrial Revolution (late 18th century),
when machine power replaced human power, making it more economical
to manufacture goods in factories than at home.
Division of Labor
Adam Smith (1723-1790) was the first to present the economic
advantages of Division of Labor, the breakdown of jobs into specialized
tasks as a way to increase efficiency.
Principles of Scientific Management
The formal study of management started in 1911 when Frederick
Winslow Taylor, who is considered as the first efficiency expert,
published his book: “Principles of Scientific Management”

Frederick W. Taylor
(1856-1915)
Taylorism
The process of determining the division of work into its smallest possible
skill elements, and how the process of completing each task can be
standardised to achieve maximum efficiency.

◉ Maximum job fragmentation

◉ Separate planning and doing

◉ Separate direct and indirect labour

◉ Minimisation of skill requirements

◉ Minimisation of handling components and materials

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Scientific Management - Henry Ford

An American industrialist
and the founder of the Ford
Motor Company.

Ford was the first to

introduce the assembly line
approach with use of
similar components in
order to achieve cost
effective mass production
of cars.
(1863 – 1947)

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Fordism
Henry Ford had ambitions to build a motorcar that would be affordable to
a great number of people, which he believed could be achieved by
changing the way the car was being manufactured.

To that end, he applied the principles of scientific management in his car

factory and added the assembly line technology that allowed for greater
division of labour, as well as time and motion management

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Changes to ideological underpinnings
capitalism, and thus shaping work

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Laissez Fair Economics (1800s – 1930s)
◉ Individual freedom and
responsibility

◉ Unleash human potential

through the restoration of a
natural system

◉ Belief invisible and self-

regulation hand of the market

◉ Theoretical influences: Smith

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Keynesianism (1930s – 1970s)
◉ “New Deal” & “Fordism”

◉ Full-employment

◉ Restrictions on
commodification labour

◉ Focus on social rights

(Welfare state)

◉ Theoretical influences:
Keynes, Commons, Webbs

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Neo-liberalism (1970s – today)
◉ Re-commodification of work

◉ Trade liberalization &

globalization

◉ Small government – shrinking

public service & removing market
distortion such as “rent seeking”
unions

◉ Activation agenda -
“employability” of those relying
on social security

◉ Theoretical influences: Hayek,

Popper, Friedman, Rand

So is Uberization the next step in the commodification of work?

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 The job-for life
There was a time when people entered an occupation fairly
certain that they would be able to pursue the same line of
work until they retired. Nowadays, technological
developments and economic demands mean that flexibility
and constant change are required in all jobs.
(Heery & Noon, 2008)

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 The job-for life 2
◉ Concept applied to (‘western’) developed world, although
shares similarities with Chinese ‘Iron Rice Bowl’

◉ Predominantly reflected in a male breadwinner model;

◉ Yet often at the exclusion of other groups:

◉ Women

◉ Indigenous people

◉ Other Minorities

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The decline of the ’job-for-life’

◉ Decline manufacturing in developed world

◉ De-industrialization

◉ Shift in developed economies from

manufacturing to services jobs

◉ Increased female participation

◉ Globalization

◉ Technological change

◉ Labour market re/de-regulation

Labour market re/de-regulation
Emphasis on workplace flexibility

◉ Casualization

◉ Part-time work

◉ Zero-hour contracts

◉ On-call contracts

◉ “Hire-and-fire” regulation

◉ Agency/Temp work

◉ Fissuration of work

◉ ’Gig’ work
The rise of the ‘gig’ economy
What is the ‘gig’ economy?
◉ Section of economy blurs lines between ‘formal’ & ‘informal sector’

◉ Work that is facilitated by IT

◉ ‘Gigs’, ‘tasks’, ‘services’, ‘rides’, etc. carried out by “independent”

contractors rather than workers

◉ Match ‘demand’ and ‘supply’ at an instant

◉ Allows for maximization underutilized assets (e.g. car, house, etc.)

◉ “Personal outsourcing” of tasks (not existing or home-based forms of

work)

◉ Scalable workforce

◉ Pay is “just-in-time” or “pay-as-you-go” (similar to piece rate systems)

(Stefano 2016)
Different forms of work in the ‘gig’ economy
‘Crowdwork’ ‘Work on demand via apps’ or
‘platform-based on call work’

(e.g. Amazon Mechanical Turk) (e.g. Uber, Deliveroo, Airtasker)

Growth in ‘gig’ work and impact on the formal economy

Figure 1: Number of new driver-partners Figure 1: Capital city perpetual taxi licence
starting each month in United States (Hall & values have fallen sharply since the arrival of
Krueger 2015) ride-sharing in Australia (Minfie 2016)

Disclaimer: For illustration purposes only, not claiming that growth in

Uber work in US has direct impact on value taxi licenses in Australia
Assessing the implications of ‘gig’ work
a
Advantages

◉ Gig work meets untapped consumer

demands

◉ Matches workers with job opportunities

◉ Flexible working schedules

◉ Redefinition boundaries of the firm

Disadvantages
◉ Extreme form of commodification of work

◉ Exploitation of the faceless worker in the crowd (e.g. Amazon Mechanical

Turk)

◉ Workers carry the risk (e.g. cancellations)

◉ Gig workers bear risks vicarious liabilities and insurance obligations

◉ Gig workers are excluded from employment laws labor protections

◉ No employment benefits (e.g. pensions, or healthcare benefits in US)

◉ No employment security or income stability

◉ Taxation challenges for governments

Pay rates in the ‘gig’ economy
.

Rate recommended by Airtaskers

Minimum
Job Received by Award Rate
Paid by poster (per hour)
worker
(per hour)
(per hour)

Data entry $17.00 $14.45 $23.5328

Cleaner $20.00 $17.00 $23.6429

Sales $25.00 $21.25 $24.3030

Pervasive nature of technology & ‘gig’ work

Badly paid Uber drivers have replaced badly paid cab drivers, but this will not
endure. Driverless cars will eventually mow down Uber. But behind Uber is an
army of other tech companies seeking to apply the same methodology to
other services and products – cleaners, business consultants, administrators,
personal assistants, nurses, lawyers and couriers are all being Uberized.
Many more employees will lose their jobs and current remuneration.

(Bornstein 2015)
So where does that leave us?

… the flexible worker of today, and even more so of the future, is expected
economically, politically and even culturally to become … a labor power
entrepreneur
A labor power entrepreneur
◉ Learn to consider his labor power, i.e., himself, to be in permanent need
of being updated through steady if risky investment.

◉ Be willing to change his professional identity as “the market” requires

◉ Move to where the jobs are, rather than insisting on the jobs moving to
him and his family

◉ Accept working in ”projects” that dissolve when the job is done, rather
than in the permanent organization of a settled traditional firm

◉ Prefer self-employment over dependent employment and be comfortable

with the many forms in between the two etc.

(Streeck 2008)
The Food Delivery Sector
.

Poor worker conditions power gig economy

Conclusion: So is ‘gig’ work new or continuation
of earlier forms of (exploitative) work?
Similarities Differences
◉ ‘Putting-out’ work relying on ◉ Extent of technological control
home workers
◉ Regulatory responses by policy-
◉ ’Piece rate’ like pay system makers (thus far)

◉ Further division of labour ◉ Speed and impact technological

through technology & advancement
organizational systems

◉ Shared characteristics with

other contingent and
nonstandard forms of
employment, including
commodification of labour.

◉ Highly rigid control systems and

deskilled work (Cherry 2015)
 How to respond to the growth of the ‘gig’ economy
◉ Do nothing change and rely on courts to determine employment status and/or
fairness ‘gig work’

◉ Develop new categories of work, e.g. ‘independent worker’ ( Harris & Krueger
2015)

◉ Clarify/expand existing definitions of employment

◉ Abandon employment status as a trigger for regulation altogether

Considerable implications for, e.g. superannuation, workers compensation, leave

entitlements, unfair dismissal.

Reconceptualise link between work and social benefits/protections

◉ Adopt the ‘universal basic income’

◉ Re-think or abandon the link between work status and social

benefits/protections

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 Key concepts and questions
Concepts
◉ Understand notions of work and
changes in the perspective of work
◉ Recognize the nature of analyzing
changes to work from a ‘job-for-life’
paradigm
◉ Appreciate the ideological and
economic forces in 20th and 21st
century
◉ Understand the emergence and
basic elements of the ‘gig economy’
◉ Recognize some of the implications
of ‘gig’ work from a worker’s and
societal perspective
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Questions
◉ How does work in the ‘gig’ economy
fit with previous forms of work, and
what similarities and differences can
be identified?
◉ What are the risks and opportunities
of work in the ‘gig economy’, what
would be challenges in particular
from a worker’s perspective?
◉ What are the underpinning
ideological perspectives that have
paved the way for the rise of the ‘gig
economy’, and to what extent is the
further ‘uberization’ of work an
inevitability?
40
 References
Aloisi 2015, ‘Commoditized Workers: Case Study Research on Labor Law Issues
Arising from a Set of on-Demand/Gig Economy Platforms’, Comparative Labour Law &
Policy Journal, 37, p. 653-690.
Budd 2010, ‘Regulating the Hidden Abode of Production: The Importance of
Conceptualizations of Work for Employment Regulation’.
Bornstein 2015,, ‘The great Uber fairness fallacy: as a driver, how do you bargain with
an app?’, The Guardian, 25 August
Cherry 2015, “Beyond Misclassification: The Digital Transformation of Work”. Comp.
Lab. Law & Policy Journal, vol. 37, p. 577-602.
De Stefano 2016, ‘The rise of the" just-in time workforce": on demand work, crowdwork,
and Labor protection in the" gig economy”’, Comparative labor law and policy journal,
vol 37, no. 3, p. 461-471.
Economist 2015, ‘The Future of Work: There’s an app for that’, Economist
Finkin 2016, ‘Beclouded work, beclouded workers in historical perspective’,
Comparative labor law and policy journal, vol 37, no. 3, p. 578-603.

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 References 2
Hall & Krueger 2015, “Market for Uber’s Driver-Partners in the United States”, Working
paper #587, Princeton University
Harris & Krueger 2015, “A proposal for modernizing labor laws for twenty-first century
work: The ‘independent worker’”, Brookings Institute, Washington DC

Heery & Noon 2009, “Job for life. A Dictionary of Human Resource Management”, A
Dictionary of Human Resource Management.
Marvit 2014, ‘How crowdworkers became the ghosts in the digital machine’, The
Nation, <https://www.thenation.com/article/how-crowdworkers-became-ghosts-digital-
machine/>
Miller 1951, “Industrial sociology”, Social research, New York.
Minfie 2016, “Peer-to-peer pressure: Policy for the sharing economy”, Grattan institute,
April 2016
Streeck 2008, “Industrial relations today: Reining in flexibility”, MPIfG working paper.
Stewart 2016, “Uber and Out? Regulating Work in the Gig Economy”, presentation
UWA Business School, 17 August
Unions NSW 2016, Innovation or Exploitation: Busting the Airtasker Myth, Unions NSW

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