The Gig Economy

[Dill]

(05-10-2019, 01:27 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Here is what it all boils down to.  

The business owners have all the power.  Their only motive is profit so they will exploit labor as much as possible to make the highest profits.

The individual worker has ZERO power.  He could leave and go to another job, but at that job the owners will have all the power also.  The only way for workers to have any power to protect themselves from exploitation is if the organize and work together.

That is the free market at work.  And that is what these drivers are doing.

Yes. And the legal system largely supports this arrangement, though it is contested to some degree by laws legalizing unions and outlawing child labor and setting safety regulations and the like. 

For the last 200 years labor and capital have been fighting over these laws, with capital appealing to contract and free choice and labor constructing conditions which either make real freedom of choice possible or, barring that, at least some dignity and control over the work process.

The difficulty now is to understand how exploitation works under contemporary conditions, when business after business has divested itself of any responsibility for workers to create an economic environment increasingly reliant on part-time/"contract" labor, which can be paid piece-rates and shelved when not in use.

(Au's example of good paying work as a truck driver is interesting here, as it is a job which requires serious life style adjustments probably not open to single mothers, and is not really that easy.  Even so, I would assume that there is still a sufficient supply of able-bodied people out there. I would like to know more about why there is a dearth of drivers.)