With Uber and Lyft drivers on strike yesterday ahead of the Uber IPO, the drivers brought to light the precarity of gig work.
On CBS News, Alex Rosenblat, technology ethnographer and author of Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules of Work, notes that, “people depend on Uber to earn their living. When your boss experiments on how much you get paid without notifying you, that can really rankle.”
In The New Republic, Alexandrea Ravenelle, sociologist and author of Hustle and Gig: Struggling and Surviving in the Sharing Economy, notes that “[Uber drivers] are not given the same protections as other workers when it comes to having the opportunity to strike. … I hope with this strike, drivers are able to make investors consider their labor practices before they buy Uber’s stock.”
Read more from Alex Rosenblat and Alexandrea Ravenelle on how gig workers are fighting back.
