Trade Unions, the Gig Economy, and the Feminisation of Work: Lessons from the Past?

From the public sector to the gig economy

This chapter argues that trade unions have struggled to adapt to enable their full engagement with and representation of women workers because of their continued embeddedness in the standard model of employment. It considers the lessons that could be learned by trade unions in order to broaden their appeal to those who work under non-standard arrangements within and beyond the gig economy. Feminism criticizes this male totality without an account of our capacity to do so or to imagine or realize a more whole truth. Current concerns regarding how unions might better engage with and represent the interests of those who work under atypical or non-standard arrangements has been sparked, not by decades of women’s work on part-time, temporary, and precarious bases but rather by the advent of the gig economy.

Index

The definition and essence of a trade union is to provide a voice for the worker, enabling a balancing of the power gap between employer and employee. How does that shift in the gig economy when the worker lacks even the most basic elements of protection through employment law? This chapter interrogates the proposition that the trade union movement has until recently neglected to engage with the issues that these workers are facing and so has denied its own roots. One result of this has been the emergence of alternative forms of organising for collective voice. This shifts the boundaries between organisers of collective voice and representation with varying results. This chapter discusses the impact on trade unionism of the gig economy and critiques its approach and pace. It identifies the conflict engendered within the trade union of advocating for members only, as well as the shifting sectors in the broader economy and trade union responses to that. The importance of trade unionism moving forward is assessed through a series of interviews and secondary research using the lenses of social movement theory at macro-level, social network theory at meso-level and social identity theory at micro-level. These theories allow an interdisciplinary analysis of trade unions responses to assess the causes of responses of trade unionists to this emergent gigging workforce and its challenges. It identifies that there is a more recent intention and potential for trade unions to engage with giggers but that an innovative and international movement for voice is required.

With the prospect of significant changes to the legal and regulatory framework around migration, British exit from the EU, coupled with the implementation of the 2016 Trade Union Act, is set to make the lives of British and immigrant workers even more precarious. It is a commonly held belief that the proliferation of the so-called 'gig economy' and otherwise precarious work is rendering labour organising historically redundant. Migrant workers, now threatened not just with unemployment, poor working conditions and low pay, but also rising anti-immigrant sentiment and potential deportation, face particularly severe obstacles to workplace organising. Drawing from interviews with five trade unionists, this article will seek to argue that, despite these obstacles, not only is it possible for workers in precarious situations to organise industrially, as we can see from the strikes and campaigns discussed here, but also that in a context of declining union activity and wholesale attacks on migrant and workers' rights, the trade union movement should be looking to these cases for answers. These cases do not, however, represent 'new forms of trade unionism'. Rather, they show us that we should seek to return to some of the oldest and most rudimentary forms of industrial action to combat conservatism in trade union bureaucracies, and to build a politicised, militant and more effective organised rank-and-file. The first of these interviews (II) is with Petros Elia, general secretary of the United Voices of the World union (UVW). UVW primarily organise and represent Latin American and West African migrant workers in service industries. They recently won a campaign for the retention of tips for restaurant workers in Harrods, London, and are at the time of writing (May 2017) organising a cleaners strike at the London School of Economics (LSE) over pay, hours and pensions. The second interview (12) is with Daniel Randall, industrial rep on the London Underground, in the National Union of RMT Workers, and centrally discusses the organisation of London Underground cleaners, chiefly comprising West African and Eastern European workers. The third of these interviews (13) is with Ewa Jasiewicz, who was an organiser for the London Unite Hotel Workers' branch. The branch has been organising campaigns around union recognition, pay and conditions, such as workload. The fourth interview (14) is with Agata Adamowicz, who works at the Ritzy Picturehouse cinema, and is currently on strike with colleagues across the Picturehouse chain for the London Living Wage, sick pay and other demands. The final interview (15) is with Callum Cant, a Deliveroo cyclist in Brighton and union representative with the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB). He organised a strike in Brighton, following successful strike action by Deliveroo workers in London. Each of these campaigns has won key demands or made significant gains in recruitment and organisation, as well as garnering considerable attention from the press and general public. They also demonstrate that not only are precarious and migrant workers getting organised, but that they are at the forefront of some of the most exciting industrial disputes today. Living and organising precariously Between 2007 and 2015, British workers saw the largest fall in wages of any Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country other than Greece, and increasingly, workers in industries who were traditionally more secure, such as education and transport, are seeing the implementation of casual and zero-hour contracts. It is estimated that 3.2 million people in the United Kingdom now work in insecure jobs (TUC 2016a: 3-5). This decline in pay, and erosion of job security and employment rights, has taken place in the context of historically low levels of industrial disputes (ONS 2017). Brexit has led to fears that a number of rights that stem from EU membership are under threat: while in some instances, laws that resulted from EU directives are well accepted, such as anti-discrimination laws, there are others that are likely to come under attack post-Brexit. …

Reviewed by: Rethinking Global Labour by Ronaldo Munck Susan Hayter (bio) Ronaldo Munck (2018) Rethinking Global Labour. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Agenda Publishing According to the ILO, one in every ten persons in employment (including self-employment) and one in every six persons that are in a formal employment relationship is a member of a trade union.1 This in a context in which the organisational power of unions in advanced economies fell from an average of 30 per cent in 1985 to an average 17 per cent in 2017.2 As a result, the voice of unions and their institutional power, for example to regulate conditions of work through collective agreements, has declined. The erosion of this countervailing force in the polity and in labour markets is closely associated with the dramatic rise in income inequality. These imbalances and inequalities are mirrored in the working arrangements of the new 'gig economy'. Is this the end of organised labour as we know it? How will labour respond to its commodification in the digitally mediated work in the platform-based economy? Where will the 'second movement' come from? What contribution can global labour studies make to understanding the contested nature of the making (and taking) of value and the shaping of the future of work? These are among the questions that Ronaldo Munck seeks to answer in Rethinking Global Labour, a thought provoking book that challenges labour scholars and labour activists alike to reclaim historical principles of solidarity and reconceptualise and revitalise a truly global labour movement. Rethinking Global Labour gives us a long-view account of labour agency and the development of capitalism as a contested path. The volume is informed by Karl Polanyi's thesis that history moves in a series of [End Page 139] double movements, with the initial expansion of markets and commodification of labour, followed by the re-embedding of markets in society and the regulation and de-commodification of labour. The author begins with a historical account of the transformation of labour as a working class under a new capitalist mode of production – from the Industrial Revolution onwards – and its organisation and emergence as a powerful social actor. The author shows the role that labour agency has played in repeatedly shaping the economic system, including the compromise between Fordist production methods and a welfare state in the advanced economies of 'the West' that ushered in a 'golden era' following the Second World War. In spite of the clawing and uneven incorporation of workers in the developing world during this period, the volume provides a persuasive argument for the emergence of a global working class and similar processes of contestation in shaping an 'era of globalization', beginning in the mid-twentieth century onwards. The author sees the resurgence of grass-roots labour movements worldwide, the growing interest in global unions, the incorporation of workers' organisations such as SEWA and alliances between the ICFTU (now ITUC) and NGOs as providing the seeds of a truly inclusive international labour movement capable of provoking a Polanyi counter-movement. To this might be added that despite declines in their membership, trade unions remain the largest membership-based organisations, many times higher than membership in political parties in countries where such comparisons make sense. Throughout the volume, the author provides a welcomed feminist critique of developments in labour markets and labour movements. It also shows the important contribution that global labour studies have made to understanding the nature of work under late capitalism and the growing exclusion and marginalisation of certain workers from the core of labour markets. The volume cautions against a binary conceptualisation of a new 'precariat' class. Instead, it provides an appreciation of a global working class labouring in conditions of increasing vulnerability, insecurity and precarity no matter where they are located. As history-making agents engaged in repeated periods of contestation and struggle, the emerging global labour movement needs to be nurtured through the integration of migrant workers and forging of alliances with other social movements (such as the environmental movement) if the deeply divisive and unequal path of capitalism is to be diverted. [End Page 140] While characterising the Decent Work Agenda of the International Labour Organization...

Labor Precarity, Social Exploitation, and Trade Union Engagement: Critical Approaches to Work from Spain and Portugalcollection provides some normative interpretations of the labor crisis’ effects on both Spain and Portugal, focusing on how digital platforms and gig economy have altered patterns of labor relations and trade union membership in Spain and Portugal. While for a time, labor appeared to have lost its centrality within critical theory and social philosophy, recent years have disproved this. The evolution of advanced neoliberal societies has shown the extent to which labor is crucial for understanding a wide array of concepts such as domination and exploitation, modes of subjectivity, health and diseases, gender relations, and the organization of democracy. Labor is a privileged space for understanding the profoundly active and constructive nature of neoliberalism. In contrast with characterizations emphasizing its laissez-faire policies of deregulation, labor is one area in which the interventionist activism of neoliberalism has been most intense, provoking changes in work processes, legislation, production models, and individualization. Moreover, many of today’s social conflicts unfold in relation to work and its conditions: new forms of trade unionism, associationism and activism renew the language and practices of resistance in a situation demonstrating a new relationship between business corporations, trade unions and the State.

Risk Shifts in the Gig Economy: The Normative Case for an Insurance Scheme against the Effects of Precarious Work*

The aim of the paper is to analyse the contiguity between the strategic management and leadership of Latvian trade unions and to assess member participation in decision making, communication between members and union leaders, and union commitment. The tasks of the study are to analyse literature about leadership peculiarities in trade unions, and member participation in trade union management; to justify the methodology of the study; to analyse the results of the study in order to obtain conclusions about leadership in Latvian trade unions in the context of strategic management. The theoretical and methodological basis have been constructed using scientific literature, publications and online resources issued by the European Union countries as well as Canada, Finland, Australia and the United States. The authors have used a non- experimental quantitative research design that includes a cross-sectional design: comparative and correlational design. The results (N = 452) have been acquired by the means of a questionnaire, comparing two random groups’ opinions on the research question: trade union leaders (N = 170) and members (N = 282). In the literature review, the following issues have been analysed: the process of leadership in trade unions, its distinctive features in comparison to other types of organizations, the assessment of the impact between leaders and followers (emphasising the leadership role in the formation of a collective action), the interaction between leaders and members of trade unions forming a shared leadership to ensure democratic process management. The research provides an evaluation of contemporary (2003 - 2013) research on leadership and communication in trade unions. The research results analysis: the literature analysis showed that in trade union leadership investigations most attention has been paid to analysing leaders’ main personality characteristics and the extent to which leadership affects union members’ satisfaction with the organisation, however, leadership aspects in regards to communication have been little researched. The survey results indicate that there are statistically significant correlations between leadership and strategic management, meanwhile discovering that there are strategy at the enterprise trade union level is mostly influenced by enterprise trade union leaders’ opinions, showing lack of democratic leadership in these organisations. The overall level of enterprise trade union members’ participation in making decisions can be evaluated as medium or low. The results indicate an ineffective two-way communication between trade union members and enterprise trade union leaders, revealing a leadership problem: industry trade union leaders cannot or do not want to find out members’ opinions on significant issues about the trade union’s activities. The leadership issue affects member commitment, which can be viewed as medium or low. The discovered problems show the possible directions of Latvian trade union strategic management improvements. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eis.0.8.6990

Based on survey data collected in Guangdong province in 2009, this chapter examines the workplace relations and satisfaction with employment conditions among migrant workers after the implementation of the 2007 Labor Contract Law (LCL). Our analysis shows that trade union membership and better understanding of the LCL helped improve migrant workers’ access to labor contracts. Trade union members were also more likely to sign medium-term contracts than short- or open-term contracts. Also, a better understanding of the LCL improved migrant workers’ satisfaction with the labor contracts they signed. However, having a labor contract also came with reduced monthly wages, and sometimes coexisted with rights violations against migrant workers. This implies that employers may have been duplicitous in setting up contracts, and that while trade unions might have generated some positives for employee benefits, these may have actually come at the cost of better monthly wages. We also found that the degree of familiarity with the LCL, rather than the presence of a trade union, played a statistically positive role in determining monthly incomes, suggesting that labor authorities need to strengthen the enforcing abilities and effective functions of trade unions.

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 10 Volume 23 Issue 2 2016 British laws on trade unions are the most restrictive in the Western World FOCUS ❐ BREXIT I n the same month as the Brexit referendum result, the UK’s Institute for Employment Rights (IER) has published its Manifesto for Labour Law: towards a comprehensive revision of workers’ rights. The IER’s proposals on reform of the UK’s labour laws could not be timelier. Fortythree years of EU membership may have contributed some gains for the rights of British workers , but current comparisons with Europe present a stark picture of working life in the UK: ‘On average, British workers work more hours per week, more days per year, more years before they retire, after which they receive lower levels of pension than most of their European counterparts. In comparison to other European workers they have generally received less education and training, and (because of lack of employer investment ) their productivity is lower. They get fewer paid holidays than almost all European comparators (the Working Time Directive notwithstanding). Their pay is so low that a great proportion of them are in poverty (and the State subsidises employers’ low wages in respect of a higher proportion of workers) than almost anywhere elsewhere in Europe. The gender pay gap is at a wholly unacceptable level’. As the manifesto’s authors explain in detail, the UK has ‘a framework of law born out of 19th century conditions, which has bypassed many advances of the 20th century, which ignores today’s economic and workplace realities, and which is not fit for purpose in 21st century Britain’. A debate on the future of British labour law is long overdue. The authors address head on the relationship between the dire state of workers’ rights in the UK and the current legal restrictions on the exercise of trade union rights, which have increasingly made collective actions such as striking so burdensome as to be almost impracticable. British laws on trade unions in 2016 remain ‘the most restrictive in the Western World. This is indisputable in relation to the right to trade union autonomy, right to strike, and the right to bargain collectively’. The Conservative government’s latest legislative attack on trade unions – the Trade Union Act 2016 – was roundly criticised for containing provisions which violate ILO Convention 87, and concerns were raised about its compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights. Some of these aspects were watered down in response to pressure from trade unions. Nonetheless, many contested provisions – concerning ballot thresholds and the expanded role of the trade union Certification Officer – have now been enacted. The Manifesto calls for that Act to be repealed in its entirety, immediately. The restoration of collective bargaining The Manifesto’s principle recommendation for reform is to shift the balance of regulation from legislation to collective bargaining. The IER’s 25 comprehensive policy recommendations are founded on building ‘extensive sectoral collective bargaining structures underpinned by strong trade union rights’. The authors acknowledge that such a shift is ‘contingent on strong State support for [collective bargaining] and for trade unions (and employers’ associations), upon whose shoulders will lie a heavy responsibility for delivery’. Legislation therefore continues to play a key role. But the authors also amply demonstrate that legislation alone is an ambivalent and sometimes ineffective tool: the rampant levels of inequality in the UK at present are not an ‘unavoidable product of the operation of the ‘labour market’’. Rather, ‘the law has been moulded purposefully to achieve these outcomes’ – in particular since the Thatcher-era. One of the principle effects of this has been the cynical destruction of collective bargaining since 1980. Once the preferred method of regulation, collective bargaining has been largely displaced by legislation: ‘By 2011 Britain had fallen to the second lowest in Europe in terms of the level of collective bargaining coverage. Coverage is probably less than 20% today, lower than at any time since before the First World War’. The result is in ‘an unnecessarily legalistic, inefficient and immensely complex system of rules, contained in an ever-growing statute book too heavily dependent on lawyers, tribunals, judges and courts for their enforcement’. The weakness of this labour...

As the global gig economy grows in size and relevance, trade unions across the world have increasingly attempted to more systematically organize and represent gig economy workers. Unions seeking to intervene in the gig economy face a host of challenges related both to the characteristics of the gig economy labor process and to the legal framework within which gig workers have thus far been inscribed. These challenges include the workforce's physical dispersion, particularly pronounced for online labor platforms, which hinders workers' capacities to build associational power; the potential pervasiveness of forms of “techno‐normative” control to which gig workers are subject; the internal fragmentation and differentiation of the gig workforce, which might hinder the consolidation of solidaristic attachments among workers; and gig workers' legal classification as independent contractors, which limits the applicability of institutions of collective bargaining and the ability to use conventional channels for workers' voices.

This open access book investigates the role of collective bargaining in the gig economy. Despite the variety of situations covered by the term ‘gig economy’, collective agreements for employees and non-employees are being concluded in various countries, either at company or at branch level. Offline workers such as riders, food deliverers, drivers or providers of cleaning services are slowly gaining access to the series of negotiated rights that, in the past, were only available to employees. Embedded in the EU legal framework, including the EU Commission’s proposal for a Directive on improving working conditions in platform work and its Draft Guidelines on the application of EU competition law, both from December 2021, the chapters analyse recent high-profile decisions including Uber in France’s Cour de Cassation, Glovo in the Tribunal Supremo, and Uber in the UK Supreme Court. They evaluate the bargaining agents in different Member States of the EU, to determine whether established actors are participating in the dynamics of the gig economy or if they are being substituted, totally or partially, by new agents. Interesting best practices are drawn from the comparison, also as regards the contents of collective bargaining, raising awareness in those countries that are being left behind in the dynamics of the gig economy. The book collects the results of the COGENS (VS/2019/0084) research project, funded by the European Union, that gathered scholars and stakeholders from 17 countries. It will be an invaluable resource for scholars, trade unionists, employers’ representatives and policy makers. This book pertains to the results of the project ‘COGENS: Collective Bargaining and the Gig Economy – New Perspectives’ (VS/2019/0084), financed by the European Union. The opinions reflected in the text are those of the authors and not backed by the European Commission.

8 | International Union Rights | 25/3 FOCUS | INDUSTRY 4.0 Two Perspectives on Platform Work Recognition comes from members, not courts SEBASTIEN FLAIS The common trend across the so-called ‘gig economy’ is a denial of rights, even when court judgements deem the practices unlawful. In the space of a few years, the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) has managed to achieve results with our Couriers and Logistics branch through a member-led combination of strategic litigation and campaigns. When we first formed the Branch, workers told us stories about a sector where companies were constantly taking advantage of their workers. This exploitation was not limited to apps. We have taken on some app-based employers, such as Deliveroo, but most courier companies operate in a more traditional fashion, using radios to allocate orders. These companies claimed they were running their own businesses and classed their couriers as independent contractors. They argued this was necessary to provide couriers with flexibility, which the workers valued. But the couriers did not get to set their own rates of pay, had to wear uniforms and were fearful of not accepting jobs. They appreciated the flexibility, but they were definitely a part of someone else’s business. We took out four cases against CitySprint, Excel, Ecourier and Addison Lee to the Employment Tribunal. We argued their couriers were ‘limb (b) workers’, or ‘workers’ for short1. ‘Workers’ sit between employees, who have full employment rights, and independent contractors, who have no employment rights; they are self-employed but are also entitled to some rights, including minimum wage, holiday pay, trade union rights and protections against discrimination. The UK Supreme Court has drawn a distinction between the selfemployed running their own business and the selfemployed working for someone else’s2. The Court has also declared that in determining the nature of the employment relationship, judges must consider the incredible asymmetric bargaining power that the company has over workers. Simply looking at the contract is not enough, otherwise ‘armies of lawyers will simply place substitution clauses, or clauses denying any obligation to accept or provide work in employment contracts, as a matter of form, even where such terms do not begin to reflect the real relationship’3. In 2017, employment tribunals declared that the companies were unlawfully denying couriers rights in three of the cases, with Ecourier admitting liability as part of a settlement. Earlier this year, we also secured our first trade union recognition agreement in the ‘gig economy’ with couriers for The Doctor’s Laboratory (TDL). In our case against Deliveroo, however, things went differently. IWGB argued before the CAC that Deliveroo workers were entitled to a bargaining unit in Camden and Kentish Town (London), which would entail ‘worker’ status. Deliveroo’s lawyers successfully argued that their workers were independent contractors because of the workers’ ‘right to substitute’. In other words, the worker may be signed in to their Deliveroo account and accept an order, but someone else could perform the delivery. The CAC nevertheless wondered, ‘why would the question of substitution ever arise?’ Deliveroo’s contract offered large amount of flexibility, such as being able to stop an order during the delivery. To us, the answer is clear: employers are placing bogus clauses in contracts so they don’t have to provide basic employment rights. They are in a disproportionate position of power and thus well placed to deceive their workforce when it comes to employment status. As it stands, the High Court has given the IWGB permission to appeal the decision, based on Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Clearly unions cannot only rely on the courts because there is no victory guarantee. But a lack of recognition is not the end for unions operating in the gig economy – it is a call to creativity. We began organising Deliveroo workers in Brighton when they protested a lack of orders and demanded a recruitment freeze. Within a week, Deliveroo enacted a recruitment freeze. Indeed, before we had won a single case for the couriers, we secured a 25 percent pay rise across four of the biggest courier companies in the UK with a living wage campaign. We cycled with...

Europe has been marked by many profound changes since the 1980s. Among those prominently discussed in the political economy literature are the massive decline in trade union membership, the alarming rise in income inequality, and the increasingly disproportionate distribution of labor market risks. This thesis combines these issues and explores how unionization relates to income and risk inequality by investigating the roles of trade unions and trade union membership in the political arena: One article analyzes if and how unions represent high-risk individuals in the legislative arena by lobbying for labor market outsiders in dualization reforms; three articles examine how union membership shapes electoral demand for policies alleviating income and labor market risk inequality and electoral support for left-wing parties in pursuit of such policies. In doing so, this thesis contributes to our understanding of solidarity in the context of inequality and how union decline might fuel inequality.