Eureka Street

Keywords: Gig Economy

AUSTRALIA

Rethinking work to embrace diversity
- Kate Galloway
- 09 April 2018
7 Comments
Employable Me follows a group of neuro-diverse young people as they search for meaningful work. The insights the program offers are a call to think about the world of work and the role of employment as a social good rather than a purely economic one, and how we make employment more inclusive.
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AUSTRALIA

Exploiting the housing crisis
- Sue Stevenson
- 16 March 2018
10 Comments
The struggle of workers has changed a lot since the 1850s, when stonemasons won the right to an eight-hour day. With the rise of contract work and the hustle of the gig economy, a lot of the fights won by workers don't even make much sense. Consider the following Facebook ad an outer Melbourne resident: FREE ROOM IN EXCHANGE FOR HELP.
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ECONOMICS

The language of exploitation in the online labour market
- Daniel Nicholson
- 24 April 2017
3 Comments
When you are in the business of exploiting people, language matters. A recently leaked document from Deliveroo is geared to emphasising that the people who deliver food for Deliveroo are and should remain independent contractors, not employees. In 2016, a Unions NSW report into the employment practices of gig-economy company AirTasker categorised the online labour market as 'unregulated Taylorism within a Dickensian marketplace where workers compete for bite-sized fragments of labour'.
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ECONOMICS

Hollowed out labour market stymies equal opportunity
- Veronica Sheen
- 13 December 2016
5 Comments
Over the last two decades we have seen a process of job polarisation. There has been growth in high end jobs, but mostly in low end jobs, the outcome of which has been the hollowing out of middle level jobs. This hollowing out of the middle also relates to greater wealth polarisation, as French economist Thomas Piketty has brought to light. The labour market is under a lot of pressure from many angles, so what does this mean for the project of women's equal opportunity in employment?
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RELIGION

When community organisations sup with the devil
- Andrew Hamilton
- 04 April 2013
27 Comments
A certain metaphorical framework sees community organisations as factories and the people they serve as consumers. It can be useful to focus attention on the costs and efficiency of programs. But when it becomes the master model for caring for human beings, it betrays all that most community organisations are about.
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