Digital work marketplaces impose a new balance of power -- New Internationalist

Digital work marketplaces impose a new balance of power -- New Internationalist

 

Factories can’t run, farms can’t produce, mines can’t be mined,
supermarkets can’t be stocked, and call centres can’t accept calls if
workers don’t go to work. Even though the decks are often stacked
against workers, the basic fact that workers can withdraw their labour
with strikes, and encourage others to do so with picket lines, has done
much to improve working conditions in a range of industries around the
world.

But in a world of globalized, digitized, and atomized work, we now have a fundamentally different balance of power...

 

Workers in an electronics factory in Shenzhen, China.
Steve Jurvetson from Menlo Park, USA - glue works under a Creative Commons Licence