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This column was originally published in the Toronto Star
For gig firms, the walls are closing in.
No one – not governments, not Uber, and certainly not any labour unions – believes that the gig economy can continue to operate in a regulatory vacuum. European governments are taking action.
Platform companies know that. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has even said it is practicable.
The core question for workers is not whether change will happen, but what it will look like. Will it be bold and transformative, or will it set a pattern sending workers’ rights backward?
The mysterious “representation” deal struck between Uber and the UFCW, a U.S.-based food and beverage union, last week last week offers a depressing answer.
That gig firms even want to talk with unions is a good thing. More good jobs in the gig economy will require some leveraging of worker power. Gig work is not going away, and its unique structure requires some out-of-the-box thinking.
Without creative, sector-based models for collective bargaining, gig work will hardly improve and is destined to mirror the minimum standards available to all “employees” under law.
That is why Unifor took up the gig firms’ offer to chat in the first place – one of many North American unions to do so, including with Uber.
Our union has a lot of skin in this game, representing tens of thousands of workers in the taxi, transport and courier industries, as well as hundreds of freelance workers. Since Uber showed up in 2012, we have committed to exploring ways to bring standards up, not down.
These conversations made sense. They gave us an opportunity to spell out the core principles that must drive any union model – including voting rights, full transparency, and the right to bargain terms and conditions. This was an opportunity to be ambitious, and bold.
After months of slow-going dialogue, and no concrete proposals, the effort seemed dead.
That is why I was intrigued to see the Uber-UFCW deal. Intrigued, but not surprised. Uber went shopping for the lowest-ambition deal, and found it.
On the surface, this agreement is as low-ambition as they come. The deal’s opt-in model, where workers can choose union representation or not, seems ripped from the playbook of U.S. Right to Work states. That the union is committed to represent workers in disputes over workplace policies designed entirely by the employer is dangerous and disempowering.
This is the first kick at the can to formalize trade unions in Canada’s gig economy. At best, Uber drivers experience a false sense of unionism. At worst, foot-dragging governments use it as political cover to do little or nothing to help gig workers.
For gig workers, this is a moment of endless possibility. Decisions made today will set the table for workplace fights in the future. There no reason why, collectively, Canada cannot conceive a modern collective bargaining and union representation model, built on fundamental principles of democracy, transparency and workers voice.
Compromising these principles only makes this work harder.
Gig workers in Canada, and around the world, deserve better.
Jerry Dias is the National President of Unifor, Canada’s largest union in the private sector with 315,000 members across Canada
