Getting Down to Business – What Happens Next? podcast on the gig economy

Susan Carland:

Welcome back to What Happens Next. This is our last look at the gig economy, but it's unlikely to be the last time we find ourselves part of it. That's why we've gathered all the best tips and advice from our featured experts to help us as individuals make change.

Greg Bamber:

Hi, my name's Greg Bamber, I’m a professor in the department of management, Monash Business School and I'm also the director of an international consortium for research on employment and work, which is part of the Centre for Global Business in the Monash Business School. And I work with employers, workers, unions that represent them, governments, international agencies, like the International Labour Organisation, doing research and providing advice and education in aspects of work and employment as well as the gig economy.

Susan Carland:

Professor Greg Bamber, thank you for joining us.

Greg Bamber:

My pleasure.

Susan Carland:

Do you ever use the gig economy?

Greg Bamber:

I use it much less than many other people do. I frankly don't use a food delivery operations. I find it just as quick and probably more nutritious to cook for myself when I need to do so. I don't use Uber, frankly speaking. I’d rather have a ride that might be just a little bit more expensive, but I know that the driver has at least had some training or development, ideally. In London, the taxi drivers for example, London, where I come from, they all know the geography.

I've heard horror stories of other people trying to use ride sharing drivers in London and the driver gets hopelessly lost. They don't know where they're going, they're wasting a lot of time running up the bill. It's not necessarily less expensive when you factor in that the ride sharing driver is not as well trained or developed as the conventional taxi driver for example, that's in London. In other contexts, it may be that the taxi drivers are not as good as they should be and they've left more opportunity for ride sharing competitors to come into the market.

Susan Carland:

What advice would you give then to a consumer for ethically engaging with the gig economy? The consumer first and then I'll ask you about the worker.

Greg Bamber:

What advice might the consumer follow when engaging in the gig economy? Read the small print and read the conditions, which is very difficult to do, because if you're placing an order for food or some goods you’re presented with long screens of conditions to read and you can't physically read all that stuff before you're timed out of your order. So it's a real conundrum, but be aware of the conditions that you're signing away when you say I accept, you may be signing away your rights to any redress or the provider may want you to think you're signing away your rights. In fact, you may not be signing away your rights, cause you're not permitted to sign away all of your rights. But the gig provider may say, "Look, you've signed your rights away." And you can, if you've got advice from a legal advice centre, they may advise you, "Look, you haven't signed away your rights." You may still have some rights under consumer protection law or under the conditions that your credit or debit card company provide.

Susan Carland:

What about if you are a worker working in the gig economy, what advice would you give?

Greg Bamber:

If you're a worker working in the gig economy, I would say, join a union, which can provide you better advice than I can because the union is specialist in your sector. Whether it's in food delivery or retail stores or ride sharing, the union has had experience at providing advice to people like yourself.And then if you are working with your colleagues in a collective organisation, you've got an opportunity of having some collective voice in relation to the employer, which you don't have as an individual where there's a huge power imbalance between you as one individual on a bicycle, compared with a multinational enterprise that has set up this particular food delivery or ride sharing enterprise.

Susan Carland:

Should we be worried about the future of the gig economy?

Greg Bamber:

We should welcome some aspects of the gig economy, we should also be worried about other aspects of it. The fact that much of it's operating under the radar of the regulators or the tax authorities, we should be trying to be ethical consumers and making sure that we're consuming from providers who do pay their fair share of tax, which supports the economy in which we live that provides opportunities for education, health, public transport and so on to our broader economy. So yes, we should be worried and trying to take action to address concerns.

Susan Carland:

Professor Greg Bamber, thank you so much for your time today.

Greg Bamber:

My pleasure.

Jacqui  Alexander:

Hi, my name's Jacqui Alexander, I am a senior lecturer at Monash University in the architecture department and I'm also an architectural practitioner, I run my own practice called Alexander Sheridan Architecture.

Susan Carland:

Jacqui Alexander, it is lovely to see you today.

Jacqui  Alexander:

It's lovely to see you too.

Susan Carland:

Do you have any practical tips for people who might want to use or work in the share economy? What are good or ethical ways that they can?

Jacqui  Alexander:

That's a very good question and it's something that I've been grappling with a lot. I came across a really interesting book by a political economist and a theorist Kostakis and Bauwens, and they wrote a book which basically argues that the sharing economy is a really opaque term,, ies are really and what occurs within the share economy could be broken down into four different categories. And they basically say that companies like Airbnb and Uber are inherently exploitative, they rely on exploited labour markets, it’s super centralised in terms of the control of the platform, they keep the IP and that sort of thing. And you have to play by the rules if you want to work for them, if you want to engage with their services, it's very controlled and it's also very profit oriented.

Whereas the other end of the spectrum, you've got things like Wikipedia and even non-digital sharing practices such as permaculture or car-pooling, that sort of thing, that is inherently more peer to peer, it’s much more common faith, rather than looking for profits. So it's more about social good, it's much more distributed as a model so the control and the benefits are similarly distributed among the community and I think these sorts of categories that they draw out in their research is really useful because it really shows us that there's a lot going on in the sharing economy and the constitution of the particular company, the way that it's managed, the emphasis on profit or social good really helps us to understand what we're engaging with.

And I think the more that we can work towards more peer to peer, more genuine sharing based networks that are local, where the money stays within the community and where we can stay inventive and creative with the ways that we're engaging, that's the best platforms that exist. And some practical examples of that is, now in Europe, there’s been a disruption of the disruptor called Fairbnb. So this is a new platform that's emerged with its locally run, cities like Bologna are trialling it because they’re so fed up with the commodification of their city that they've started a platform called Fairbnb, where 50 per cent of profit goes back into the community projects.

It's all locally run. The fees are not exorbitant and it's really about fostering genuine shared activities. So I think we're starting to see almost a version 2.0 emerging which isn't the wild West of unregulated global, the ‘one percent’ of massive disruptors and hopefully we can work towards a moment in time where there’s a more sophisticated, distributed approach to the sharing economy, because I think that there are some really great things that can come out of it.

Susan Carland:

If people wanted to know more about the sharing economy, the gig economy, where would you recommend they go to get more reliable information?

Jacqui  Alexander:

That's a good question. Well, there are many great articles. I guess one that I mentioned before was Kostakis and Bauwen have done an independent publication, which can be downloaded. It's a bit high level and it's from an economics position. I'm not an economist by any means, but I found it really fascinating and really good at orienting me to the ethical dimensions of the sharing economy. So that's a great one. But there's also, if anyone's interested in architecture in the sharing economy, I have been also really interested in the work of a research based practice or laboratory in Britain called Open Systems Labs Britain Coles and the architecture practice that exists alongside it is called Double Zero. And they've been doing some really innovative work looking at ways that we can learn from the sharing economy and develop much more free platforms under civic dominance that are about social good. So following on from our earlier discussions about not for profit models and ways that we can engage with the sharing economy in an ethical way, they do some fascinating work and they've been producing designs to have this that you can download and build with CNC routers or print it out parts of, thinking really in a creative way about free IP and shared IP and producing things together that result in better outcomes for cities, which is really interesting.

Susan Carland:

Jacqui Alexander, thank you so much for your time today.

Jacqui  Alexander:

Thanks Susan!

Nathaniel Diong:

I'm Nathaniel Diong. I'm an educator and designer at heart and the CEO at Future Minds Network. So we help youth by building businesses. And so we've actually been able to work with 11,000 youths to unlock their endless creativity through startups, whilst practising skills for future employment.

Susan Carland:

Nathaniel Diong, welcome.

Nathaniel Diong:

Thanks for having me.

Susan Carland:

We’re lying at home catatonic after a long day at work, it's a Thursday night, no one in the family has any capacity to make a meal. And we're like, "Let's just get something on, one of the delivery services." But, I don't know if the average consumer realises that the Uber delivery person, when they pick up the meal, they get $2, they get $150 per K that they drive and then they get $2 50 when they deliver. That's it. But I know myself there've been talking about lying at home like, "I can't move someone bring us food." What can a consumer do in that situation? Is it better not to use the app? But then I know like people like my friends that I was telling you about earlier who were international students during the pandemic, this was literally the only work they could get. Am I helping them by not ordering from them? And then they don't even get that $5? Should we order and then just give them a really big tip? Or should we not use them at all?

Nathaniel Diong:

Yeah. It's a moral dilemma and I'm not sure if I can answer this one because, I think the big positive of the gig economy is it provides work, but the other question is at what cost. And so you have an influx of work and jobs and experience, but at the same time you have people being exploited. And so, is it worth it to help keep funding those jobs if they're going to be exploited? Or is it worth it not doing anything at all and then not any revenue stream or jobs?

Susan Carland:

Right.

Nathaniel Diong:

So it's like, how can you answer that question?

Susan Carland:

Even with the experience that they get from it, how useful is it if you've been delivering on your scooter for Uber, how useful is that in getting you any other job? Uber is not going to give you a reference, then you're not going to be able to put Uber as like, "Call whoever runs Uber, they'll tell you what a great delivery guy I was." So does it give us enough useful experience that we can then take into another, perhaps more secure profession?

Nathaniel Diong:

Yeah. That's the other complexity of employment and particularly the gig economy, because what we're seeing, and I'm actually in the process of writing a paper around it called education 5.0, is we have a lack of skills, we have a lack of jobs, we have a lack of mindset and those two are like the three pillars because even when we do have enough skills, you see case studies like Tanzania, where the government introduced a whole scheme, where they upscaled all the youth and then they had a moment of, "We actually don't have any jobs for you."

Susan Carland:

Right. And that's actually happening around the world, this the growing number of cultural elite without elite positions to step into and that creates a lot of frustration.

Nathaniel Diong:

Yeah. And so, we've just had what research by Victoria University, which said a hundred and... I think a hundred thousand jobs were lost by young Aussies in 2020 and in 2021, we're going to have 120,000 fresh graduates looking for more jobs. And so we have a deficit of 220,000 young people looking for employment. And so, it's interesting and I think the gig economy is a space to watch just purely because of the worker it can give, but to how much of it is effective? It's really hard to say because you have the work, but how much do they actually practice the skills and human skills that you'll need for future employment? How much further are they looking into your journey? And then beyond that, how are they creating more job opportunities for you in the future?

Susan Carland:

Would you use the gig economy at all? Do you ever use Airtasker or get food delivered on Uber?

Nathaniel Diong:

I don't use the gig economy in that sense much. I tend to make meals at home, starting to love cooking, but I think in terms of the other industries that I’m in in the gig economy, such as in consulting at Y Lab at the Foundation of Young Australians, definitely. I think for me, I have a large portion of my career and lived experience to thank for the gig economy because it's helped me do things like lead international comms strategy for 25,000 humans at events like TEDx. But at the same time, it comes back to where are all these jobs coming from? Because you have a bunch of really good jobs, which give you that on the job experience, but to get there, you have to have more experience. And so it's like that dilemma where you have entry level jobs now that ask fresh graduates to have five years of industry experience and a masters degree and it's ridiculous. Or it's like being a kid and wanting to get work experience and they're like, "Oh, you have to have work experience to get experience." Like how do you start?

Susan Carland:

Yeah. Yeah. So what tips or advice would you give for the average person at home that wants to do the right thing when it comes to the gig economy, whether themselves participating in it, perhaps as a worker or as a user, what is the right thing to do? Or how could we make it better?

Nathaniel Diong:

I think from a user perspective, if you're going into the gig economy and seeking gig work, there's three things. The first is really knowing your rights and knowing what is a reasonable expectation for your employer to treat you as. The second thing is being clear about your own expectations and how you fit into that role. What qualifications or experience you have and what qualification experience do you want to gain from that opportunity? So how can you grow from that? And I think the third thing is consulting young people and having honest conversations with your employer about where this is all going to go. Because I think particularly because it's such a grey area, you just need to communicate more because there's no current standard of practice or social contract, that we discussed before, that's really working right now. And so if you want to participate, those are the three things that you should really keep in mind.

Susan Carland:

That’s if you want to work in the area, what if you're a user?

Nathaniel Diong:

If you're a user-

Susan Carland:

You want to post an ad on Airtasker or you want a meal delivered or you want to get in an Uber and go somewhere.

Nathaniel Diong:

I think being conscious of the effects that we discussed and the impacts of that. And again I can't almost give you the answer to the moral dilemma that we discussed before, but being really conscious about what each of these things do and not trying to exploit the system, knowing that if I post a job, that's the only job they're going to get, therefore, I'm going to price it really low. But actually being reasonable and realising that for each task that you put out, there's a person behind that task who might be living on that wage or might be living on that task that you're giving. So being really conscious of the world around you.

Susan Carland:

Do you think, are we too negative about the gig economy? I think for many of us, when we had our first jobs as teenagers, they were disgusting and low paid and mind-numbingly boring and you always came home stinking of whatever food you had to make, in the fast food joint or the movie theatre or the factory or wherever we worked and is it just also just the necessary grunt work that you need to do as a young person before you get to a more high paying white collar?

Nathaniel Diong:

I would say we have reasonably concerned about the gig economy because a lot of the times when we talk about negative impacts, we like to sweep them under the table and I think it is important for us to start at least talking about the legal frameworks that protect young workers. Otherwise, the positives of the gig economy are pretty endless in terms of … whether we like it or not the gig economy is here to stay and it's not something that we should try to eradicate, but rather look at, how are our systems currently working and how might we improve them and make them better rather than trying to eradicate them all together? Because like we said, it provides that job, it provides those experiences, sometimes it provides those skills, but working through the system and understanding how it works currently and for example, putting more effort and working with large corporates to look at how might we build skills in the long term. I know you want to do short-term work, but how does this fit into the overall economy? Because at the end of the day, each of the workers that go through the gig economy are going to come back out and come back in again. And so if you're not investing in the future, we're backpedalling everywhere that we go.

Susan Carland:

What role do you think entrepreneurship or startups can play in making the gig economy better?

Nathaniel Diong:

Oh, that's such a good question. Okay. When we talk about startups and entrepreneurship, right? Launch Vic just released a report where the startup ecosystem is set to build another and create another 11,000 jobs in the next few years. And so particularly in the gig economy, we're seeing more startups come up needing help and that's because I think in the current climate people are wrestling between, "Should I work for another business or should I build my own?"

And so I think particularly in the system, something that's really important is being aware that these things are happening and startups are rapidly growing right now. We have, I can't even count how many Aussie unicorns we have right now, but unicorns are basically startups worth over $1 billion so things like Canva, CultureAmp, Zouks and so Australia and Melbourne and Sydney are now becoming almost the next Silicon Valley. So it's a very interesting dynamic where a lot of business is happening. And so this huge influx and potential for more jobs that are going to be fueled through this gig economy.

Susan Carland:

Nathaniel thank you so much.

Nathaniel Diong:

No worries.

Chandra Shah:

I'm Chandra Shah. I worked at Monash, the last permanent job I had, in the Centre for Economics of Education and Training. Since I've retired from Monash, I've been working as a consultant in the gig economy and some work I do on a pro bono basis.

Susan Carland:

Chandra, welcome to the podcast.

Chandra Shah:

Thank you.

Susan Carland:

What advice would you give to people, first of all, if they were consumers of the gig economy, if they were thinking maybe I'll order a meal on Uber delivery or whatever it is, what advice would you give them for how to engage in that fairly ethically? Or would you tell them not to do it?

Chandra Shah:

Well, I think you can make general statements or be ethical or moral about what you're doing. Now what does that mean? It means different things to different people and often when they make the decision “Oh I'll do it once, I won't worry about it now. I only did once.”

So, you could say that, look, it would be better for your own health if you were to cook your own food rather than order through Uber and things like that. But it's becoming so pervasive, the whole thing people say, "Well, just order an Uber meal, sit in front of Netflix” and that's it. And those activities are making you unhealthy. You're not moving, you're just consuming and sitting in front of the screen all the time or playing computer games. I think this is a public health thing. Now we have come through a pandemic, listening to the public health advice. I think this is the next challenge for public health. Whether governments are prepared to confront those mega companies on these things or not it's yet to be seen. But I think the public, they have to be informed about what is happening and how this is affecting their lives and will affect their lives in the long term. But the thing is, like climate change, it is very difficult to tell people what the effect is, if the effect is slow and long-term. You can't tell somebody who's 20 years old, look when you're 65-71 you won’t be able to move much, if you're on the current trajectory in terms of your consumption and your activities.

Susan Carland:

What about if anyone was listening who was either already working or was thinking about working in the gig economy? What advice would you give the worker?

Chandra Shah:

Okay, well, first of all, if you've got specialised skills and you could market those skills, well go and work in it, but make sure your interests are protected and you be disciplined so that work/life balance is maintained. If you are in the physical gig economy, where everything is quite routine, there is no development of additional skills and things like that, you're just delivering things - think about it as just a temporary job to get you through the next phase in your life and the next phase should always be to try and get some permanent work which will give you income for the longer term. It's all right to change jobs, but change from one good job to another good job. Don't get stuck into the gig economy  - undertake training, good training, not micro-credentials, which will give you long term secure jobs. So, if you don't want to go to universities and that's fine, but do a trade or something, which will give you a longer term prospects in terms of jobs and skills.

Susan Carland:

I imagine it, in some ways, it would be very easy for gig workers to get stuck in the gig economy because you need to work a lot of hours to make enough money. And the problem with the modern gig economy is there is no training on the job and when you want to leave, Uber is not giving you a reference. So it would be very hard to take from your work in the gig economy and then use it as a springboard to get to the next job. So it must be easy to get stuck.

Chandra Shah:

I think there are two groups of people who get stuck. Well, two groups of people. The ones who gets stuck are often the most vulnerable people who do not have the normal social security protection, so they are the temporary workers, the international students and the backpackers and those people, backpackers can obviously go back to their own country, but temporary workers and workers on temporary visas and things like that who do not have this social protection and don't have access to education and training, and because of their financial vulnerability, often they get caught in that cycle. Now, we saw during the pandemic, what happened with temporary workers who could not get JobSeeker and JobKeeper and started working in, continued working the gig economy and even when they were sick and the rest is history of what happened. And this was a thing the unions alerted the government right in the beginning. A lot of other people did and yet they were excluded from those benefits. But in terms of people, the permanent residents here and citizens here, I think you always have to think about how you get out of the gig economy, not how you go into it. Think about it as being a stepping stone, only what it was originally designed for  - a bit of pocket money. Think of it only in that way, because they're not set up promotions or things. They don't promote you to a general manager of Uber or anything like that if you work 40 years as a delivery driver.

Susan Carland:

Professor Chandra Shah, this has been very enlightening. Thank you so much for your time.

Chandra Shah:

Thank you.

Susan Carland:

That's it for this episode and for this topic, we'll be back next time with a whole new topic to explore. I'll catch you then on What Happens Next.