Category: Gig economy

Uber is the best-known name in precarious employment world-wide. Precarious workers lack access to benefits, like health and dental, and want them. So Uber has proposed the creation of pooled benefit programs for its drivers as part of what it has dubbed Flexible Work+. Simon Archer and Joshua Mandryk take us through the platform’s portable benefits program.

There are many ways to address the growth in precarious work and the social and economic challenges it brings. By simplifying the legal test for determining an employer-employee relationship, we could make a significant and immediate difference to millions of workers in the gig economy and beyond.

Uber has announced that it will lobby Canadian governments to exempt its drivers from employment protections. Steven Barrett and Josh Mandryk tell us why that’s bad for gig workers and what systemic legal reforms are needed to properly protect them.