growing gig economy

just reply those discussion

1.I find the topic of precarious/informal work to be very relevant to today’s society. With the growing gig economy, the United States and many other countries are finding themselves in the position where informal work is growing in size in the labor market. Because this type of work is growing, more and more workers are not held under OSHA and other regulations.

According to an excerpt from Invisible Work, Invisible Workers: the informal economy in Europe and the US, the informal economy is another tool to exploit labor similar to sweatshops. The article states that because production needs and profits are rising, the businesses find ways to try and have more labor to meet these demands but at a lower cost. The alternative for many of these industries is to form gig labor where the laborers are more independendant contractors than the are actually employees. As the week 13 presentation states, companies like uber thrive off of this sort of method that prevents the laborers from receiving protections and beneftis. In this novel, M Leonard first defines the formal economy, informal economy and the difference between work and labor. These distinctions are what separates the contractors from employees. The author states that there is no real difference in the work that they due but rather that these work-around jobs are simply a result of avoiding regulation. The other believes that the best solution to this issue is to deregulate the labor economy in order for people to be hired again as full time employees rather than laborers. M Leonard is aware of the consequences that this will bring but truly believes that the informal economy only exists due to formal regulation.

This issue is very relevant due to the fact that many people are beginning to work in contact employment meaning that laborers will no longer have leverage in their places of work. It also means that a lot o the regulation passed to prevent the exploitation of labor is not successful in what it set out to do. M Leonard has a point that regulation is creating more problems with the nature of work but I don’t agree that the solution would be to eliminate the regulations. These regulations were put in place as the result of exploitation and their removal doesn’t seem like an effective solution to eliminate the exploitation of labor. It would likely be useful to change the nature of the informal economy but not for the better. I believe the government should look into precarious and informal labor and create a clear cut definition to allow more incorrectly categorized types of work opportunities to rights and regulations.

References:

Leonard, M. “Invisible Work, Invisible Workers: The Informal Economy in Europe and the US.” SpringerLink, Springer, link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230371873.

2.The topic that I believe to be a concerning topic, regarding issues in the workplace is Sexual Harassment. Sexual Harassment has been a major issue in the workplace for many centuries. This is any form of unwelcome types of communication, can be verbal, nonverbal, visual, or any type of sexual actions towards someone. The verbal actions can be on a persons clothing, or any form of things that regarding the person body, people making sexual jokes, or spreading rumors about the person’s sexual lives. The physical forms of sexual harassment can be inappropriate touching, kissing, hugging or stroking. There are some instances where employees that reject sexual advances are often times paying unfair consequences such as being fired, refused a promotion, placed is worse circumstances like being positioned somewhere they do not want to work at or even given an undesirable job position. Sexual harassment also leads to a hostile work environment for employees. The way it does so is that it can interfere with ones performance at work, creating an unbelievably intimidating work environment. When the work environment does turn hostile it causes for the employees to be unable to strive in the career that they worked so hard to get. Those who are victims of sexual harassment they are often times faced with major personal effects due to it, they are more likely to report the after effects of symptoms of depressions, stress, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. “ One study found that the psychological effects of sexual harassment can rise to the level of diagnosable Major Depressive Disorder or PTSD. Sexual harassment has also been tied to psychological effects such as negative mood, disordered eating, self-blame, reduced self-esteem, emotional exhaustion, anger, disgust, envy, fear, lowered satisfaction with life in general, and abuse of prescription drugs and alcohol.” (Select Task Force On The Study Of Harassment In The Workplace.) The lasting effects on the victim do not only carry on a mental level it may also cause physical harm like headaches, exhaustion, and sleep problems etc. After a victim faces unlawful treatment by their employer and or co-worker some may fail to report them due to them being afraid of retaliation. As someone who may one day own a business, of my own it is my duty to ensure that my employees will never deal with any forms of harassment including sexual harassment. There are actions that can be made to decrease the sexual harassments that do happen at the workplace, It all starts with establishing early on that sexual harassment of any form is not tolerated and those do sexually harass an employee and or coworker are to face major repercussions, the workplace can also establish a safe free zone where employees do feel comfort in coming forward to any types of sexual harassment they faced. There they can also add different forms of training to the workplace, such as “bystanders intervention training” so those who do witness an act of sexual harassment happening they will be able to know what to do at that very moment. I believe that it is in our hands as future employees, employers, or even business owners to change sexual harassment that does happen in the workplace, to allow everyone to feel safe in their career.

https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/task_force/harassment/up…

3.One of the topics that I find very interesting is uncertain work schedules. I think this is an interesting topic because it is the type of employment I have currently. I work in a job where I get to chose my own shifts, but the employer is the one who decides on the number of shifts that each employee must work in a given month. This leads to some uncertainty because the shifts are not always the same amount and not at the same time every month either. I think this is an interesting topic because many college students and lots of other employees are now starting to work for jobs that provide flexible or uncertain work schedules. While I personly believe this is a very convenient thing for me and other college students, I think that for older works and adults this can be hard, because they need some sort of consistent schedule for their lifestyles. I think it also creates a problem because you are not earning the same amount of money on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. This can also cause a problem for adults because they need at least have an idea of how much money they are making because they are the ones that have families to raise, and bigger bills to pay like mortgages. On the flip side of things, I think that uncertain work schedules can also be beneficial for certain families because it can provide parents the time to raise a family and work. They can schedule their shifts while their kids are at school and are home for them when they are back. While this does sound like a good thing, it seems as if in the topic of uncertain work schedules the cons outweigh the pros. Lonnie Golden the author of the article, “Irregular work scheduling and its consequences” seems to agree with this concept, as well. She believes that it is not feasible for workers to be working by uncertain schedules because she says it causes them to work longer work hours during the week, and it can even sometimes have a negative effect on families though it aims to provide the opposite. In conclusion, she goes on to believe that it is not something that is the best thing for a worker because it provides a sense of uncertainty which can lead to stress in the worker.

References:

“Irregular Work Scheduling and Its Consequences.” Economic Policy Institute, www.epi.org/publication/irregular-work-scheduling-and-its-consequences/.