The bottom line: Workers are “fed up,” said Ken Jacobs. “The broad through line is that the wealth that’s being generated is equitably shared with those who are doing the work that creates it.”
A study from UC Berkeley’s Labor Center and a recent one backed by gig workers suggest hourly wages — which are based on the time when a worker is actively engaged on the app and do not include total working time — could be as low as under $10.
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“Two-thirds of these missing workers are 65 years and older, which makes sense given that we are still in a pandemic where older people face the greatest health risk,” he told MarketWatch. “But the workforce has largely returned to its pre-pandemic level, so this does not support the idea that ‘nobody wants to work anymore.’”
“Uber has a long history of buying research that presents a rosy picture of their business model. It is depressing when respected academics allow themselves to be used this way,” Ken Jacobs said.
“We do have a challenge with staffing problems [in healthcare],” said Laurel Lucia, director of the healthcare program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center. “I don’t see how this is the solution. Removing labor protections and benefits for healthcare workers will be bad for both workers and patients.”
Your state might also have “high-road training partnerships” between high-quality employers in a particular job market and workforce education and training programs, Egan says.
The gig companies do not pay into state unemployment insurance funds. In California, a UC Berkeley Labor Center study estimated that Uber and Lyft would have had to pay $413 million into the state’s unemployment insurance fund from 2014 to 2019 if they had been required to do so.
A separate 2013 study by University of California Berkeley economists found the fast-food industry has the largest share of workers who rely on public benefits, with 45% using government assistance.
“We’ve seen a big trend recently in the labor movement around bargaining for the common good,” said Ken Jacobs, chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center. “It’s a focus that reflects that workers have lives that go beyond the workplace.”
UC Berkeley Labor Center report, shared exclusively with MarketWatch, raises concerns about gig-work model expansion and calls for better worker protections.
