The regulation of labor platforms: the politics of the Uber economy
"This paper explores the emergent political process of the regulation of labor, or labor-brokerage, platforms through a case study of Uber. To date, Uber is one of the largest and most successful of the labor platforms. It is the dominant player of the ride-hailing platforms, the type of platfo...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Institution: | ETUI-European Trade Union Institute |
| Format: | TEXT |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Berkeley
2017
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-724312454259-The-regulation-of-labor-platfo.htm |
| Summary: | "This paper explores the emergent political process of the regulation of labor, or labor-brokerage, platforms through a case study of Uber. To date, Uber is one of the largest and most successful of the labor platforms. It is the dominant player of the ride-hailing platforms, the type of platform that have received the most regulatory attention. Thus, the case of Uber presents a particular opportunity for empirical observation. The venues in which these regulatory issues arise are multiple: legislative processes in city councils and state assemblies, administrative processes in city and state regulatory bodies, and judicial processes in courts. In deciding how to regulate Uber, officials make a decision that has broader implications for the gig economy—whether to take a permissive approach to technological innovation or to actively regulate it. By looking across various arenas of regulation relevant to TNCs (transportation network companies, as they are called), we see the array of interests, how actors deploy resources, and the institutional rulemaking venues in which they operate. Although labor regulation has received a great deal of scholarly and media attention and has been of concern to drivers and other labor actors, this study shows that labor is the area of least regulation and has hardly even arisen in elected bodies. We find that Uber regulation in the United States follows an elite political process dominated by concentrated actors and government decision makers largely acting ex officio (committee heads, regulators, and judges). Grassroots actors, workers and consumers, correspond to the two demand niches that Uber fills: the demand for work and the demand for service. Both of these grassroots actors have collective action problems and are “represented” largely by surrogates. In the case of consumers, it is Uber itself that solves the collective action problem. In the case of workers, the surrogates are unions and other labor organizations as well as private plaintiffs’ attorneys. These surrogates bring their own interests that shape the nature of their advocacy and do so in a way that skews the representation of the grassroots interests." |
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| Physical Description: | 42 p. Digital |