How quickly we accepted that it’s normal to pay someone to go get our groceries for us. To drive us around when public transportation is available. To run errands for us. To bring us fast food.
Covid capitalized on it.
People don’t want to give up that luxury now that they’ve had it. Even if it makes things cost 2x-3x as much.
Even when we all know its exploitive labor.
It’s true delivery and driver services have been around for hundreds of years but now instead of companies with full time employees (with benefits) , the gig employee gets paid less while taking on risk that aren’t compensated by the employer (car accidents, gas, car repairs, injury or attacks).
Gig work is a much worse thing than maybe a lot of people realize. And it’s also making more people servants to others.
It’s moving full time employees with benefits and using company property to no benefits and using their own property that they have to pay for.
I feel like this is more of an argument against the American health insurance system and better national retirement programs, than anything else.
If Medicare for All, or an equivalent system existed in whatever country, there aren’t really any benefits other then their retirement that people care about.
I feel like people rightly point out that it’s fucked up our health insurance is tied to employment, but I don’t see people point out how it’s also fucked up that being able to survive our retirement is also based on employment. Social security alone isn’t enough to live a healthy life off of.
So if the government provided those things, I don’t really see anything wrong with the entire gig work thing. It might be within my lifetime that we see economies transition to a mostly AI/automation production system that relies on a fraction of human labor currently needed that will be supplemented by a gig work economy. Then the governments would most likely need to implement a Medicare for all type system and some sort of UBI.
Sure Gig work would be fine if there was universal health insurance, short term disability for injuries (workman comp). Reimbursement for car use, and guaranteed living retirement.
But it doesn’t have any of those things. That’s most of why it’s bad.
Idk, maybe it’s just semantics. But to me it’s a tool and it’s the inherent systems that are bad.
Many people who actually do the gig work would argue positive examples like they wouldn’t have had the opportunities to do the work, as they have chronic illness that prevents them from working at random times or they are able to work just enough to provide supplmental income without accidentally losing benefits.
The tool is exploitave because these scenarios exist and there are people to be exploited. It’s not causing these scenarios, it’s taking advantage of them. Its a symptom.