Hi-Phi Nation: The Problem with Gig Work

Slate Technology

Slate

Society & Culture, Technology, History

4.6 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2023

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Willy and Heidi were both gig workers for Shipt, the fast-delivery app for groceries or same-day shopping. In 2020, they both realised: the pay algorithm had changed. Now, they couldn’t tell what a job would pay, or whether it would earn or lose them money. Instead of just taking it, they decided to fight back. In the gig economy, companies like Shipt, Instacart, and UberEats all use black box pay algorithms to try and get workers to accept gigs but hide information from them to do so. Early in the pandemic, a rag tag group of gig workers tried to resist, and found someone at MIT to help them. Host Barry Lam talks to them about the steps they took, and political philosopher Daniel Halliday (University of Melbourne) talks about the differences between wage labor and freelance labor and why he thinks the biggest gig economy companies are morally suspect. Then, we talk the future of regulation and worker-owned apps and delivery platforms. Guests include Drew Ambrogi (coworker.org), Dan Calacci (MIT). This is an in-depth, longform version of a story originally done for WNYC studio’s Radiolab in their Gigaverse episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I made you think you was dream.
0:02.0	My name is Caden Sinclair.
0:04.0	Some people call us American royalty.
0:06.0	We were liars.
0:07.0	A new series on Prime Video.
0:09.0	We were happy. We wanted for nothing.
0:12.0	Based on the best-selling novel.
0:15.0	Something terrible happened last summer,
0:17.0	and I have no memory of what or who hurt me.
0:20.0	No one in my family will tell me.
0:22.7	When you're left for dead, you want answers. We Will Liars. New series, watch now, only on Prime Video.
0:31.6	A high nation. A show where philosophy and reality meet. From Slate.
0:39.1	Heidi was an insurance agent for 16 years in Florida, in a region called the Treasure Coast,
0:47.2	about 125 miles north of Miami along the Atlantic shore.
0:52.3	It's a little bit of paradise with rivers and estuaries and palm trees.
0:57.0	Today's story starts with her journey from full-time employee to gig worker.
1:04.0	Really what kind of changed was motherhood for the third time.
1:09.0	Basically, I drove an hour away to North Palm Beach to my office.
1:15.2	When I had my daughter, I don't know, something inside of me changed,
1:19.3	you know, you're like, I can't be this far away.
1:21.6	Heidi isn't her real name, by the way.
1:24.5	She decided to use a pseudonym for reasons that will become clear later. Meanwhile,
	...

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