Have we shifted the Overton Window on the gig economy? Looking back at changes in law, labor markets, and attitudes toward tech in 2021, it’s possible that we did. A second year of pandemic-induced labor market shocks led to the Great Resignation, and — with the ongoing squeeze and lack…

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a global transition to digital mediation of work. For some, this has meant work previously done at office desks can now be performed remotely. However even before Covid-19, a shift to fragment, automate and outsource work that could be performed remotely and online had begun…

Major legal and regulatory victories in the UK and EU should boost momentum for strengthening gig worker rights in the United States. It’s been quite a year for gig workers around the world. A year ago, platforms like Uber and Doordash were celebrating a costly success undermining workers’ rights in…

Bama Athreya, Fellow, Open Society Foundations and Gillian Dowie, Senior Program Officer, Employment and Growth, International Development Research Centre As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to destabilize economies, it threatens to erase the incremental gains in women’s economic status achieved in the past quarter century. To address recent and longstanding inequities…

The ongoing global pandemic has accelerated our transition to a platform economy. Platforms are disrupting traditional labor relations. And in doing so, they are disrupting social relations as well. …

After firing employees who objected to company policy, Google is facing an unfair labor practices case with huge implications for the future of U.S. democracy. Google’s well-known motto, “Don’t be Evil,” might imply the company expects employees will use their moral compass. Then again, maybe not. The National Labor Relations…

On August 28, I brought my family to the National Mall to join March On for Voting Rights. It’s hard to know whether you’re making history when you’re right in the middle of it. Fifty years previously, on August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King led 250,000 people on a…

Gender justice advocates have been waiting for far too long for trade justice. Women’s rights organizations have been pointing this out for at least two decades in research and advocacy around the role of trade agreements in exacerbating inequality. This activism, epitomized by memorable protests when trade negotiators convened in…

Labor groups refused to give in after rideshare companies won an anti-worker state ballot initiative last year through a heavily funded disinformation campaign. Gig workers have won an important victory in California’s courts. On August 20, a judge ruled that a ballot initiative by Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash aimed at…