If the companies know that a strike will only last for a day/short time it’s kind of doomed from the start to achieve little to nothing. If workers are looking for concessions, that requires prolonged effort and solidarity fundraising/organizing 99 times out of 100.
Gig economy companies know this, which is why they structure their product experience both for consumers and workers to be as alienated and atomized as possible. They also run specials all the time such as “complete 10 drives in the next 48 hours for a $50 bonus” which can be a pretty effective picket line-crossing incentive for those who need the money. People from this group will likely be much harder to reach because of their financial situation demanding so much of their attention. It’s so easy for the companies to just turn up the compensation dial temporarily, and if they know it’s coming they can just weather the 24 hours with generous offers to potential scabs and then go back to business as usual when it’s over.
Organizing despite the difficulties is the only way, but it’s definitely a stacked deck.
As someone who works as SOC for one of these companies, you’re 100% right. While I don’t make or affect any of the decisions you’re talking about, I’ve certainly been in the room when they’ve been made. I tell people to not sign up for these jobs whenever I can. Its not worth it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the decisions are couched in language such as streamlined, direct, integrated, and highly manageable user experience solutions or task workflows tailored to flexibly maximize dynamic engagement metric requirements to euphemise the fact that the goal to deliberately sandbox and disempower users. Could also be the case that the pretense is dropped altogether in some contexts, like when unionization is actively being discussed as a threat model to the bottom line.
At any rate I’m glad to hear from someone “on the inside” that I’ve got an accurate assessment of the situation. Depressing how the situation is, but thanks for weighing in.
If the companies know that a strike will only last for a day/short time it’s kind of doomed from the start to achieve little to nothing. If workers are looking for concessions, that requires prolonged effort and solidarity fundraising/organizing 99 times out of 100.
Gig economy companies know this, which is why they structure their product experience both for consumers and workers to be as alienated and atomized as possible. They also run specials all the time such as “complete 10 drives in the next 48 hours for a $50 bonus” which can be a pretty effective picket line-crossing incentive for those who need the money. People from this group will likely be much harder to reach because of their financial situation demanding so much of their attention. It’s so easy for the companies to just turn up the compensation dial temporarily, and if they know it’s coming they can just weather the 24 hours with generous offers to potential scabs and then go back to business as usual when it’s over.
Organizing despite the difficulties is the only way, but it’s definitely a stacked deck.
As someone who works as SOC for one of these companies, you’re 100% right. While I don’t make or affect any of the decisions you’re talking about, I’ve certainly been in the room when they’ve been made. I tell people to not sign up for these jobs whenever I can. Its not worth it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the decisions are couched in language such as streamlined, direct, integrated, and highly manageable user experience solutions or task workflows tailored to flexibly maximize dynamic engagement metric requirements to euphemise the fact that the goal to deliberately sandbox and disempower users. Could also be the case that the pretense is dropped altogether in some contexts, like when unionization is actively being discussed as a threat model to the bottom line.
At any rate I’m glad to hear from someone “on the inside” that I’ve got an accurate assessment of the situation. Depressing how the situation is, but thanks for weighing in.