We’ll be taking a look the kinds of platform work where workers and employers only connect over the internet, with no physical meeting. “Cloudwork”, “geographically untethered work”, “remote platform labour” – whatever you call it, the premise is the same: work can be done anywhere there’s an internet connection and it doesn’t matter if the person doing it is next door or halfway around the globe.
From YouTube, to OnlyFans, stretching over to microwork platforms like Appen and Scale: we’ll consider a hugely diverse range of platforms and their different practices. Some are already well explored within the study of labour rights in the platform economy; others are less so.
The thread that draws these different platforms together is the way they are reconfiguring the geographies of labour at an international level, meaning workers around the world must compete for wages, within labour markets that exist at a global scale.
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What it’s like working in the gig economy, what it’s like being managed by algorithms, rated on every job and monitored every step of the way? Millions of people are piecing together a living in the gig economy. From online freelancing to couriering, domestic work to beauticians, digital platforms are becoming a major means by which people are accessing paid work.
The Fairwork podcast looks at the stories of people within the gig economy, exploring the intersection between precarity and technology through the lens of our five principles of fair work. We speak to workers who have made headlines with legal cases, taken part in strikes and those just quietly getting on with trying to put food on the table.
Our host, Robbie Warin, asks the big questions, looking at the political and the personal – exploring the radical changes to our world of work through the eyes of those at its centre.
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