The Gig Podcast
The Gig is about the women and men who work in the so-called 'gig economy' worldwide. They find work through online platforms, and will tell us why we all need to be concerned about the real future of work.
Season 2: Who Cares? is about the future of the world’s oldest profession: domestic and care work. Release: January 2022
Episode 1: The World’s Oldest Profession
In this episode, we learn more about what domestic and care work is, and its roots in exploitation and slavery. We meet organizers in South Africa and Hong Kong and speak with an expert on modern day slavery to understand the power dynamics underlying care.
Guests: Elizabeth Tang, IDWF; Myrtle Witbooi, IDWF/SADSAWU; Ambassador Luis C. deBaca; Tembi, migrant domestic worker organizer
Episode 2: Servants to Technology
We fast forward from past to future, speaking with two technologists, one based in New York and the other in Barcelona, Spain about how new technologies are affecting the future of work in the care sector.
Guests: Alexandra Mateesceu, Data and Society; Olivia Blanchard, Digital Future Society
Episode 3: Permanent Wave
We go to India and Thailand to talk about intimate personal care services that take place in people's homes. Advocates and researchers explain how technology is affecting personal care workers who are already low wage, precarious and exploited. Clients expect 'emotional labor' from these women but there are big risks of gender-based violence that platforms may exacerbate.
Guests: Kriangsak Teerawitkajorn, Just Economy and Labour Institute (JELI); Khawla Zainab, IT for Change
Episode 4: The Company You Keep
An ethical businessperson helps us understand alternatives to the exploitative gig model. We ask: if we keep humans in the loop, can tech in the domestic and care sector be an opportunity rather than a curse?
Guests: Aaron Seyedian, Well-Paid Maids; Sayem, domestic worker
Episode 5: Turning the Tables
We continue to explore ways in which if advocates and workers themselves are part of the design and control of platforms, big data may open up new opportunities for vulnerable workers who have long been isolated and exploited.
Guests: Palak Shah, NDWA Labs; Fairuz Mullagee, University of Western Cape/Social Law Project; Abigail Hunt, Overseas Development Institute
Watch the teaser for Episode 5: Turning the Tables here!
Episode 6: Who’s the Fairest
The surprise ending to this season was a wave of protests by India’s beauty care platform workers. How did they find each other? Why did they organize? And can they hold up in the face of the company’s intimidation tactics? The season concludes with a look at what we all can do to create a fair care economy.
Guests: Soumyarendra Barik, Indian journalist; Palak Shah, NDWA Labs
Watch the teaser for Episode 6: Who’s the Fairest here!
If you haven’t heard Season 1 yet we’re still taking listeners along for The Ride!
Season 1: The Ride is all about the app that just about everyone has used: Uber.
Episode 1 Hooked
Drivers from the UK, US and South Africa discuss how appealing Uber was when it first entered their cities, and how they got hooked. We learn how the business was a bait-and-switch game, externalizing costs onto drivers and steadily lowering the fares and eroding their earnings. We also find out how the companies were using driver data for algorithmic management.
Episode 2 Taxi Wars
A tale of two cities: Cape Town, South Africa and New York City. Through the stories of Uber’s entry into these two markets, the unsuccessful legal challenges brought by drivers in Cape Town, and the story of the tough New York Taxi and Limo Commissioner Meera Joshi, we gain a better understanding of Uber’s business model and how it sought to disrupt local taxi markets everywhere it went.
Episode 3 Judgement Day
James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam decided to challenge the premise that they were not Uber’s workers. In the UK we follow their precedent-setting lawsuit as it rises to the UK Supreme Court. In the US we talk to drivers and organizers on the eve of their historic victory in California, the passage of Assembly Bill 5 that set a standard for all gig workers to be classified as workers.
Episode 4 Driven to Organize
This episode returns South Africa to find out why Uber drivers were driven to organize. We also talk to organizers in India, the UK and the US as they describe how they managed to build momentum in multiple countries and launch a global day of action on May 8, 2019.
Episode 5 The Gig is Up
It was hard enough for drivers to find one another and organize even without a global pandemic. Gig workers are inherently isolated and yet they were finding each other not only in their cities but around the world. How were they doing it? And how were they keeping it up even in the face of the increased isolation brought on by a pandemic? I got to join drivers from around the world when they met for the first time in January 2020 and launched a new network.
Episode 6 The End of the Road?
We've followed the stories of several drivers throughout this season. In this episode we reflect with them on what it all means, not just for them but for all of us. This conversation has never been just about Uber. It's about the platform economy and gig work generally, and making sure the future doesn't just become a return to an exploitative past. The drivers we've interviewed- Rebecca, James, Tess, Yaseen, Derick and others- reflect on how to reform the digital economy.
STAY TUNED for Season 2: Who Cares? Coming soon!
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Watch The Gig Season 2 Trailer!
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