Gig Companies Violate Workers Rights

Summary

(Washington, DC) – Major digital labor platforms, also known as gig companies, operating in the United States misclassify gig workers as independent contractors, denying them labor rights, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.The 155-page report, “‘The Gig Trap’: Algorithmic, Wage and Labor Exploitation in Platform Work in the US” focuses on seven major companies operating in the US: Amazon Flex, DoorDash, Favor, Instacart, Lyft, Shipt, and Uber. These companies claim to offer gig workers “flexibility” but often end up paying them less than state or local minimum wages. Six of the seven companies use algorithms with opaque rules to assign jobs and determine wages, meaning that workers do not know how much they will be paid until after completing the job. “Digital labor platforms have created a business model that evades employer responsibilities while keeping workers under tight algorithmic control, driven by opaque and unpredictable decisions,” said Lena Simet, senior researcher on poverty and inequality at Human Rights Watch. “They promise flexibility but, in reality, they leave workers at the mercy of unstable and subminimum wages, little social protection, and in constant fear of termination without recourse.”Workers for the seven platforms examined are assigned orders, supervised, paid, and fired by algorithms. All except Amazon Flex, which uses a flat hourly wage, use opaque and frequently changing algorithms to calculate pay per job or shift. Apps and platforms are designed to keep gig workers on the job for long hours and low pay, and dynamic pricing algorithms make it extremely difficult for them to plan their schedules and manage their earnings. Managed by algorithms, workers cannot fully understand how they are assigned work, or how their wages are calculated. Without any transparency, it’s extremely difficult for them to challenge decisions made about their work or pay.Human Rights Watch examined the working conditions of ride-hailing, shop...