From the time we are small children we are taught the importance and reminded of various clichés such as sharing is caring. This sentiment poses the question of whether or not sharing in the best practice for the future of the economy. Past labor practices appear outdated in competition with the growth of the gig economy and a new emphasis on job sharing and a huge growth in independent contracting. Hence, the gig economy, in which temporary employment is the norm and the ratio of independent contractors to employees changes drastically, will become the new standard of the labor force. While the future of labor currently lies in the gig economy, this labor structure may not be as advantageous for employer and employees as they believe and would …show more content…
The I.R.S has created a test that can be used to determine the difference, additionally, other common law cases have set a precedent for the long debated issue of the role of the employee versus the role of the independent contractor. This issue is especially relevant in light of the Uber case as well as past cases including FedEx and Microsoft. Because of the broad, yet strict standards of the law, classifying a worker as an employee or as an independent contractor is a challenging task. Therefore, if this truly were the future, it would be in the best interest of corporations to lobby for a third legal category of workers, in order to protect themselves from litigation and large penalties. However, this high risk is not the only threat to …show more content…
This labor structure will force employers to be even less connected to their workers. For instance, an independent contractor may work for a company only once to complete a task. Due to this high turnover, the employer relationship is destroyed because no relationship ever needs to be made. In an article from The Nation, Henwood asserts that the sharing economy monetizes “the desperation of people in the post-crisis economy while sounding generous.” Additionally, employment in the sharing economy has already failed among some of the most educated
In today’s society you either have to work hard to live a good life, or just inherit a lump sum of cash, which is probably never going to happen. So instead a person has to work a usual nine to five just to put food on the table for their families, and in many cases that is not even enough. In the article, “Why We Work” by Andrew Curry, Curry examines the complexities of work and touches on the reasons why many workers feel unsatisfied with their jobs. Barbara Ehrenreich writes an essay called, “Serving in Florida” which is about the overlooked life of being a server and the struggles of working off low minimum wages. Curry’s standpoint on jobs is that workers are not satisfied, the job takes control of their whole life, and workers spend
With the economy beginning to rebound, many companies are looking for every way possible to save money and/or maximize profits. One of the biggest costs incurred by any business is labor. Consequently, employers sometimes attempt to minimize this expense by utilizing independent contractors instead of employees. There are potential risks for employers who mischaracterize an employee as an independent contractor, because, while it may save payroll taxes and other benefit costs in the short term, it may lead to penalties on such taxes as well as other inadvertent violations of worker’s compensation laws, FMLA, etc, which each hold separate penalties for violation.
Bennett-Alexander, Dawn D. & Hartman, Laura P. (2001). Employment Law for Business (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Primis Custom Publishing. Downloaded February 4, 2008 from the data base of http://www.eeoc.gov
This article stated that, according to a study conducted by the United Way and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), approximately 40% of young workers in Ontario are in jobs classified as part-time, temporary or self-employed. The same study also found that less than half of part-time/temporary workers were able to transition into full-time higher-wage work and, perhaps most importantly, the percentage of those able to transition will likely decline over the next decade. Clearly, the growth of part-time and temporary jobs has been growing on an upward trend over the past decade and appears to have become part of business as usual. A study conducted in 2015 by the United Way and the Law Commission of Ontario (LCO) states that approximately 22% of part-time/temporary work in the past year can be characterized as precarious work, i.e. work with poor or no benefits and job security. The growth in precarious employment is due to many factors including Globalization, improved technology, changes to business models, and the economic shift from manufacturing to the service sector. These shifts have essentially formed a new economy that has a high demand for fluidity and flexibility in the common workplace, and has low a demand for the old fashioned “Standard” model of the workplace (largely full-time employees with a full suite of
Precarious employment is work that is not secure, generally does not include any type of benefits, and is paid so lowly that it generally does not meet the living wage. This type of employment is unfortunately a growing trend in today’s societies due to many factors such as outsourcing, globalization, a saturated job market, shifts from manufacturing to the service sector and jobs also being replaced by computerized units. When speaking on precariousness these trends also affect European societies due to the fact that the outsourcing is generally to places where labour is extremely cheap in order to lower the costs of goods such as Asia and South America. This growing trend is also resulting in negative effects on the economy such as the bottoming out of the middle class and a large amount of citizens living below the poverty line and not able to earn a livable wage. Minimum Wage is on the incline, however, it is still not enough to live on practically and there are many other factors that make precarious work disadvantageous other than the wages such as job security and room for growth and promotion within the company. The negative changes to the job market brought on by the changes to it have resulted in higher expectations and demands from the employers which reduce the amount of people which are eligible for what are now known as “good jobs”. These good jobs generally entail a livable wage, benefits, more flexibility and better job security. Precarious work is categorized and gendered as women and immigrants make up the vast majority of employees in this type of work. Since precarious work affects citizens on a global scale, in this essay, there will be comparisons and contrasts drawn between precarious work in Canada ...
There are several issues that were both discussed in the book End This Depression Now by Paul Krugman and Changing Contours of Work: Jobs and opportunities in the New Economy by Stephen Sweet and Peter Meiksins. The textbook offered a sociological analysis of the nature of work in the new economy, such as the new opportunities in this economy as well and the challenges many workers now face and ultimately how this change the family lives of many. The book also discussed about the new face of the workplace and work in general, which includes issues on inequality and discrimination. The book discussed job security, policies and why workers work more now than they did before or work in 24/7 economy. Lastly, the book talks about the ways on how to face all the challenges in this new economy and work environment.
Findlaw.com, 2008. Independent Contractors vs. Microsoft: Don't Treat Contractors Like Employees. Retrieved December 11, 2008 from: http://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/articles/3737.html
With the current shift of globalization, many jobs are being outsourced overseas. Illegal immigration is being seen in jobs that cannot be outsourced, rather jobs that are insourced. These include jobs in the large scale agriculture, construction and meatpacking industry; which require labor to be done within the country. It also includes jobs in service industries where demand has seen a recent incline such as nannies, food service and landscaping (119). The sharp increase of demand roots from consumers’ dwindling free time; a result of more females working and a general longer work day. The change of labor structure has further created a demand for insourced
“Sweatshops” provide the unemployed who struggle finding work a paying job, to provide food, shelter, and medicine, thus reducing (infant) mortality rates, and may even provide enough money to provide an education for family’s offspring. This gives the younger generation a chance to improve their future quality of life, with a wider variety of career opportunities with a better salary. ACIT (2000) writes that multination...
Outsourcing creates a loss in secure work and leaves people with retail and restaurants jobs, where there is little to no employee benefits and are essentially dead end jobs. Barbara Ehrenreich, “Nickel-and-dimed on (Not) Getting By in America”, talks about her undercover experience working a low wage job and the difficulties living with those financial constraints (1998). She concludes that her wage needs to be increased by about two more dollars an hour to really be a livable wage. That was in 1998 and almost 20 years later we are still facing the same issue. The lack of a livable wage cause some workers to take on two, three, or even four jobs to make ends meet. Ehrenreich continues on by saying that welfare recipients use the funds given to them in conjunction with their job(s) in order to live (1998). When marginalized groups are constantly working with low wage jobs, they have no time to trying to pursue a technical trade or higher education to get a better job in the future. This problem is what creates the continuous rut, that never allows the disadvantaged a chance in achieving
Bennett-Alexander, D.; Hartman, L (2012) Employment Law for Business 7th Edition. New York, NY. McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.
Uber was formed in 2009 and after its historical success; it planned to expand into other countries like China, India Pakistan etc. The current challenge for Uber is the competitors in China and different regulations in these countries. Uber is facing challenges from two of its main competitors in the China. It hardly got rides of 1 million on a daily basis in China. Uber sales are slow in these countries. Now, the company is planning to think about the expansion strategy and its effect on the operations of the country. The important question here is to recommend that whether it should expand into other countries or only focus on the United States.
You should also watch the below Financial Times discussion on the gig economy and its implications to the future workforce:
Which means we become disconnected from who we are in the jobs we do. Doing the jobs that people do to support whatever is going on in their life makes them “depressed spiritually and physically to the condition of a machine.” Karl Marx says; that in itself is an enemy against Karl Marx question “what is it to be free?” because if we are slaves to our job then are we really free? We become detached from ourselves which doesn’t allow workers to express themselves in their nature which leads to emotionally issues due to lack of emotionally expression. To make the best out of physically and emotionally suppressing jobs individuals do, Karl Marx says to “see themselves in the objects they created” which means use the objects as a positive outlet like creativity or artistic ability because it reminds us who we are at the end of the day and we share our personal qualities in the things we produce.
In a capitalistic society, the owner exploits his workers by draining them of their self-worth. A worker gets paid only for his sustenance as the product he works on gets sold by the capitalists in the interests of creating a profit. This leads to the worker’s alienation from his surroundings and his work leading to the estrangement from the process of production. The existing social relationship is inherently antagonistic in nature and will give rise to class struggle that will eventually lead to the collapse of capitalism, and the creation of a new