Only a small group will retain the privileges that workers fought to gain over the last 150 years. The origins of the gig economy — where short-term, freelance tasks are allocated by an online service — lie in Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform, launched in 2005, a few years before the term “gig working” was coined.

They were bored. Or worried about layoffs. Or tired of working hard for a meager raise every year. They got another job offer. Now they have a secret. A small, dedicated group of white-collar workers, in industries from tech to banking to insurance, say they have found a way to double their pay: Work two full-time remote jobs, don't tell anyone and, for the most part, don't do too much work, either. Alone in their home offices, they toggle between two laptops. They play "Tetris" with their calendars, trying to dodge endless meetings. Sometimes they log on to two meetings at once. They use paid time off -- in some cases, unlimited -- to juggle the occasional big project or ramp up at a new gig. Many say they don't work more than 40 hours a week for both jobs combined. They don't apologize for taking advantage of a system they feel has taken advantage of them.

Contract drivers say algorithms terminate them by email -- even when they have done nothing wrong: Stephen Normandin spent almost four years racing around Phoenix delivering packages as a contract driver for Amazon.com. Then one day, he received an automated email. The algorithms tracking him had decided he wasn't doing his job properly.

A group of UK drivers and a driver from Portugal have won a historic victory in their legal battle for greater transparency of algorithmic management practices used by Uber and Ola Cabs. The drivers were seeking to access their personal data from Ola and Uber as well as the right to transparency to algorithmic management. The cases were taken before the Amsterdam District Court as both Ola and Uber control driver data from the Netherlands.

Drivers for Uber, Lyft, and other firms are building apps to compare their mileage with pay slips. One group is selling the data to government agencies.
Also check out James Farrar's presentation at MyData 2019 on this topic!

Uber drivers in Europe and the U.S. are fighting for access to their personal data. Whoever wins the lawsuit could get to reframe the terms of the gig economy.

Uber and Airbnb signify new ways of working and doing business by facilitating direct access to providers through new digitalised platforms. The gig economy is also beginning to percolate into legal practice through what is colloquially known as NewLaw.