The platform economy: Flexibility or race to the bottom? - a podcast by Research ICT Africa

As the so-called fourth industrial revolution unfolds, gig work driven by technology companies in the platform economy, is being promoted as the solution for the unemployment crisis as it lowers the barriers to entry into the labor market. There are a number of companies that have proliferated in recent years offering gig work or what’s come to be known as microwork via apps, where complexity is stripped away from projects, which are broken down into singular tasks that are distributed over the internet via platform companies. On the higher end of the skills spectrum people may engage in, for example, desktop publishing tasks via platform companies, such as Mechanical Turk or Clickworker, while on the lower end of the skills spectrum - and possibly most famous globally - people drive cars for the e-hailing taxi service, Uber. There are, of course, a whole range of jobs in between in the platform economy, but the distinguishing feature of this gig economy, emphasized in its name, is that is part time work, and people are paid per task, which means that there is no job security or social protections offered by the companies, such as health benefits, sick pay, annual leave and retirement benefits. Gig workers are also often paid below minimum wage. So, gig work has come to be associated with precarious work--and gig workers all over the world are taking these platform companies to court, as they find themselves exploited and experience rights violations. Our guests are two lawyers that have defended gig workers, Prof. Darcy du Toit from the University of the Western Cape (UWC). And bringing us the international perspective is German Lawyer Dr. Ruediger Helm.

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