The truth behind your late night Uber Eats
Author: Emilia Weeden | People & Culture Officer 2023
The gig economy is often described as something which empowers workers by offering them choice & flexibility, and an alternative to the traditional 9-5 structure of work. But what about those who participate out of necessity - because they can’t find work elsewhere or because they need the extra income? What is the true cost of your late night Uber Eats?
“Drive with Uber – be your own boss” (Uber, 2022). When the app-based gig economy debuted circa 2008, it was surrounded by idealist discourse such as this. Gig work was posited as a new way to work – a way which afforded freedom, flexibility and autonomy, and the ability to - as Uber puts it - “be your own boss”. While freelance and ‘gig’ based work existed long before the notion of stable and secure employment that has been the norm in the post-war era, what distinguishes the contemporary gig economy is its reliance on digital platforms (Churchill & Craig, 2019). For companies such as Uber, Deliveroo, and Didi – that have become synonymous with the gig economy - digital platforms are their organisational structure; they’ve redefined workers as ‘independent contractors’ and the algorithms of their platforms connect this workforce to jobs (Churchill & Craig, 2019). Though in theory the emancipatory potential of these technologies would provide an alternative for workers craving greater flexibility, in reality, this is often not the case. In fact, the gig economy is built on the backs of underpaid and underprotected migrant workers. Focusing on an Australian context, this essay will argue that the precarity, instability and algorithmically controlled nature of platform work deepens existing inequalities. I will begin by contextualising the Australian gig economy, then move to a discussion of how it is deepening economic, structural, and racial inequalities.
To understand the composition of the gig economy in Australia, it is necessary to break down the socio-political conditions that allowed – and shaped – its existence. Woodcock and Graham (2020) identified nine preconditions that have facilitated the rise of the gig economy, each of which relate to an underlying factor of technology, society, political economy, or a combination thereof. Of note is the final precondition, ‘globalisation and outsourcing’, which combines all such factors. At the core of globalisation is deregulated markets, powerful transnational corporations, and the spread of shared technological infrastructures (Woodcock & Graham, 2020; Sassen, 2006). Gig economy platforms have capitalised off such conditions, building their services on top of these globalised infrastructures and scaling quickly, in many cases becoming powerful transnational corporations themselves (Woodcock & Graham, 2020). Another key pillar of globalisation has been international migration. For Australia, this has meant shifts in the dynamics of migration (Hugo, 2006). China and India have replaced the UK as the highest providers of migrants and temporary migration has increased, including those on student or temporary work visas (Phillips & Simon-Davies, 2017). This has important implications for the gig economy in Australia, as app-based gig work is very often being carried out by migrants (The Senate, 2021; Victorian Government, 2020) – as Doorn et al. (2022, p.2) put it, “platform labour is predominantly migrant labour”. A 2021 Senate inquiry (p.38) found that only one in ten gig workers were Australian citizens, with 80% being temporary visa holders and two thirds being international students. While reasons for participation vary, many migrant workers report their entrance into this industry being a result of their limited labour market power and inability to find alternate work (The Senate, 2021, p.38). Thus, migrant workers fit into the categories that McKinsey&Company (2016, p.8) label ‘reluctant’ and ‘financially strapped’, who participate in the gig economy out of necessity as opposed to by choice. Here, three important things must be noted; migrants constitute a substantial section of the Australian gig economy workforce, in many cases they are participating out necessity instead of choice, and without a continuous influx of migrants – as fuelled by globalisation – platforms would likely struggle with maintaining their labour supply (Doorn et al., 2022, p.2). Essentially, the gig economy represents the digitally mediated commodification of low-paid migrant work (Doorn et al., 2022, p.1). This provides a backdrop for the proceeding discussion about the gig economy’s deepening of economic, structural, and racial inequalities.
While the (mis)classification of gig workers as self-employed, independent contractors is fundamental to the flexible nature of gig work, those with relatively little power often experience such ‘flexibility’ as ‘precarity’, exposing them to greater financial risks and deepening economic inequalities. Gig platform companies depict themselves as neutral ‘technological platforms’ so as to avoid the “ethical, legal and social responsibilities of employers” while maximising scalability and profitability (Tan et al., 2021, p.12). This has manifested in the near non-existent income security of gig work due to its demand-driven nature as well as the erosion of workers’ rights as gig workers lack many basic entitlements that traditional employees receive including guaranteed minimum wage, sick leave, workers compensation, rights to non-discrimination and collective bargaining, and health and safety protections (Tan et al., 2021). Importantly, a national survey in 2019 found that there is low awareness among gig workers on the implications and risks of their independent contractor status, which is likely compounded for the migrant community as English is not the preferred language for many (Actuaries Institute, 2019, p. 25). Although app-based gig work appears to offer a quick pathway to self-sufficiency and financial independence for migrants, data from the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU) reveals that when considering vehicle, phone, protective equipment, and other costs that are the responsibility of gig workers under this system, their effective hourly rate sits at $12.85 per hour, just more than half of the Australian national minimum wage of $24.80 for casual workers (The Senate, 2020, p.35). This places platform workers amongst the lowest paid workers in the country and highlights the pervasiveness of income inequality in Australia (The Senate, 2020, p.35). Moreover, the temporary visa status of many migrants further compounds their vulnerabilities. For example, migrant workers cannot access state-funded healthcare in event of injury on the job and weren’t eligible for income support during the COVID-19 pandemic when many lost work (Orr et al., 2022). Together these factors paint a picture of the reality of gig work for migrants, where many earn less than what is deemed a living wage and bear additional costs because of their combined ‘independent contractor’ and migrant status.
Building upon this analysis of economic inequality fuelled by the gig economy, we can consider the role that gig work plays in distancing migrants from more secure work and deepening structural inequalities. When moving to Australia, migrants often encounter challenges with navigating and securing employment due to a variety of factors including lack of familiarity with the new market, dis-recognition of overseas qualifications, language barriers, systemic discrimination, and lack of access to career support (Abkhezr & McMahon, 2022). In this sense, the gig economy is recognised for its ability to bring short-term economic benefits – albeit low in comparison to the greater Australian workforce - to recent migrants (Actuaries Institute, 2020). However, in the long-term, extended involvement in the gig economy has detrimental impacts on the experiences of migrant workers. A stable and secure career pathway is closely tied to the physical and psychological well-being of those from migrant backgrounds and strongly linked to their integration and cohesion in their relocation country (Abkhezr & McMahon, 2022). Thus, gig work – which provides no such career pathways or opportunities – puts migrants, particularly those with previous qualifications and work experiences, at risk of integration interruptions and limited career development. This creates further structural barriers for migrants to transition into full time work, thus limiting their ability to also increase their economic and social power.
A final, yet highly important, factor of migrant gig economy work that should be considered is its facilitation - and thus deepening of - racial inequalities. While from a legal perspective, discrimination on the grounds of protected characteristics including race is restricted, there is significant evidence of racial discrimination against gig workers that has gone unregulated due to the lack of workers’ rights outlined previously (Tan et al., 2021). The algorithms of gig platforms rely on rating and reputation systems to assign and manage ‘gigs’, with workers who have higher scores receiving greater opportunities (Tan et al., 2021). Rosenblat et al. (2017) note, “Consumer-sourced ratings like those used by Uber are highly likely to be influenced by bias on the basis of factors like race or ethnicity”. Therefore, one’s identity can significantly affect their prospects in the gig economy including the amount of work they receive, their wage, and even their ability to work at all, with termination occurring after a workers ‘rating’ drops below a certain threshold. As a result of their diverse cultural identities, migrant gig workers experience such racial targeting at inflated rates, and thus are at the highest risk in this network of reputation-based algorithmic control (Orr et al., 2022). Moveover, migrant gig workers carry the additional burden of “emotional labour” and “identity work” to overcome their racial prejudices, please customers, and try to maintain their ratings that will determine their future work (Tan et al., 2021, p.16). On a broader scale, the disproportionate representation of migrant workers in the gig economy highlights “the historically racialized nature of service work in settler-colonial states such as Australia”, with the customer-servant relations of such platforms upholding entrenched relations of servitude along racial lines (Orr et al., 2022, p.5).
Though in theory the gig economy offers flexibility for workers and prospects for migrants moving to Australia, the classification of gig workers as ‘independent contactors’, the lack of government regulation of platforms, the systems of reputation-based algorithmic control, and the limitations of gig work serve to deepen existing inequalities. Interlocking systems of oppression mean that migrant gig workers are economically exploited, structurally limited, and racially targeted. To improve the situation of gig workers, both from migrant backgrounds and other vulnerable groups in Australia and across the world, governments and regulatory bodies must further consider their roles in the gig economy and the ways in which they can shift responsibilities from individuals to these transnational gig economy corporations.
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