Bargaining power of gig workers
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Bargaining Power of Gig Workers
Introduction to Gig Workers' Bargaining Power
The gig economy has transformed the traditional labor market, offering flexibility and autonomy to workers. However, this shift has also introduced significant challenges, particularly concerning the bargaining power of gig workers. This article synthesizes recent research to explore the dynamics of bargaining power among gig workers, focusing on self-organization, legal frameworks, and innovative strategies for collective bargaining.
Self-Organization and Communicative Unionism
Gig workers often find limited representation in established unions, prompting many to turn to self-organization. Research on British "indie" unions highlights the importance of self-mediation practices in facilitating effective negotiations. By integrating direct action with self-mediated messages that resonate with the public and media, these workers can enhance the effectiveness of their campaigns. This approach, termed "communicative unionism," underscores the significance of discursive power-building practices in the labor movement1.
Hidden Transcripts and Everyday Resistance
In Africa, gig workers face precarious working conditions and algorithmic monitoring, which constrain their autonomy and bargaining power. Despite these challenges, workers employ diverse resilience, reworking, and resistance practices to navigate these constraints. These practices, understood as "hidden transcripts," reveal how gig workers actively produce economic spaces and scales, demonstrating their agency in the gig economy2.
Legal Barriers and Collective Bargaining
Legal frameworks significantly impact the bargaining power of gig workers. In Malaysia, for instance, gig workers are excluded from the definition of "workmen" in employment legislation, preventing them from forming or joining trade unions. This exclusion denies them collective bargaining rights, leading to the exploitation of their rights. Strengthening legislation and exploring alternative avenues, such as non-binding agreements and application-based societies, could help overcome these barriers3.
Institutional Embeddedness and Marketplace Resistance
In Hong Kong, gig work is embedded in a weak regulatory framework, allowing platforms to exert significant control over labor. However, gig workers practice multi-platforming and marketplace resistance to defend their interests. This dynamic reveals the dual nature of gig workers' bargaining power, which is influenced by their dependence on platforms and their working status. The embeddedness of gig work involves new tensions that challenge the stability of the labor market4.
Dynamic Principal-Agent Model and Self-Respect
A dynamic principal-agent model sheds light on the nature of contracts between employers and gig workers. The model captures the worker's bargaining power through a vulnerability parameter, which measures the rate at which wage demand decreases when unemployed. Workers with low vulnerability can afford to remain unemployed, thereby maintaining higher bargaining power, while those with high vulnerability are more susceptible to exploitation5.
Collective Bargaining and Legal Reforms
In the U.S., the binary classification of workers as either employees or independent contractors complicates the bargaining power of gig workers. This classification often leaves gig workers without the legal protections afforded to employees. Proposals for modernizing labor laws, such as creating a new category of "independent workers," aim to address these ambiguities and enhance the bargaining power of gig workers6. Additionally, the concept of "Contractor Associations," as seen in Uber's proposed settlement, offers a potential solution by providing a platform for gig workers to voice their concerns and negotiate with employers7.
European Union and Collective Bargaining
Under EU competition law, several options could facilitate collective bargaining for gig workers. These include classifying gig workers as employees, analyzing collective bargaining agreements as "by effect" restrictions of competition, carving out legitimate objective exceptions, and encouraging member states to enact laws explicitly allowing collective bargaining in certain sectors8. The first collective bargaining agreement for food delivery platform workers in Sweden exemplifies how traditional labor law norms can be adapted to the gig economy, providing a model for other countries9.
Alternative Regulatory Frameworks
In Australia, recent developments in competition and consumer law offer new avenues for protecting gig workers' rights. Enhanced provisions for unfair contract terms and a class exemption for collective bargaining by small businesses, including gig workers, highlight the potential of commercial law solutions in addressing the challenges faced by non-employed workers in the gig economy10.
Conclusion
The bargaining power of gig workers is shaped by a complex interplay of self-organization, legal frameworks, and innovative strategies for collective bargaining. While significant challenges remain, recent research and legal reforms offer promising avenues for enhancing the bargaining power and rights of gig workers in the evolving labor market.
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Most relevant research papers on this topic
Advancing Workers’ Rights in the Gig Economy through Discursive Power: The Communicative Strategies of Indie Unions
Effective negotiations for gig economy workers can be enhanced by strategically integrating direct action and self-mediated messages, known as communicative unionism, to resonate with the general public and mainstream media.
Hidden transcripts of the gig economy: labour agency and the new art of resistance among African gig workers
African gig workers manage constraints in the gig economy through diverse everyday resilience, reworking, and resistance practices, highlighting the importance of labor agency in the gig economy.
Highly CitedBALANCING THE RIGHT OF GIG ECONOMY WORKERS IN THE CONTEXT OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
The weak definition of workmen in Malaysian employment legislation hinders gig economy workers' right to form a trade union, highlighting the need for government support and alternative avenues.
Institutions, Occupations and Connectivity: The Embeddedness of Gig Work and Platform-Mediated Labour Market in Hong Kong
Gig work in Hong Kong is embedded in weak regulation, occupational norms, and connectivity, reshaping workers' power through digital platforms, but its embeddedness is unstable and challenges the gigification and platformisation of work.
Self-respecting worker in the gig economy: A dynamic principal-agent model
The dynamic principal-agent model explains the nature of gig worker contracts, revealing that employers can sacrifice instantaneous profit to regulate worker demand, potentially resulting in higher profits.
Workers, Protections, and Benefits in the U.S. Gig Economy
This paper proposes a reform of the worker classification system to address ambiguities and social and economic problems in the gig economy, offering a menu of policy solutions.
The Über-Union: Re-Thinking Collective Bargaining for the Gig Economy
Uber's quasi-union "Contractor Associations" may be the key to empowering on-demand workers and re-establishing collective bargaining power within platform companies.
'I’ll call my Union', said the driver - Collective bargaining of Gig Workers under EU Competition Rules
Collective bargaining for gig workers under EU competition law can be achieved through classification as employees, analyzing collective bargaining agreements as "by effect" restrictions, carving a legitimate objective exception, or encouraging Member States to adopt laws allowing collective bargaining in specific gig economy sectors.
Autonomous regulation of work in the gig economy: The first collective bargaining agreement for riders in Sweden
The first Swedish collective bargaining agreement for food delivery platform workers shows how pre-existing labor law norms both constrain and enable trade unions and collective bargaining in the gig economy.
The importance of competition and consumer law in regulating gig work and beyond
Competition and consumer law in Australia has the potential to protect gig workers' rights and address issues faced by self-employed individuals in the gig economy.
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