That is two worker-side people [S4-5], two platform-side people [S6-7], and one neutral chair [S8].

Transcription

1 0. Transition from previous panelist In the Crowdsourcing Project at IG Metall we are working with Testbirds and other German platforms to create a mediation process for violations against the Code of Conduct. [S2] The process will be carried out by a board of five people. [S3] That is two worker-side people [S4-5], two platform-side people [S6-7], and one neutral chair [S8]. This board will seek solutions by consensus when a platform is alleged to have violated the Code of Conduct. [S9] It will also mediate between workers and platforms if a worker has contacted a platform with a complaint but they were not able to reach a solution bilaterally. [S10] [S11] 1. Intro I'm Six Silberman. I work for IG Metall in Frankfurt in the Crowdsourcing Project. I have worked there for two years. I'm American; I moved to Germany two years ago. Before that I got my PhD in Information and Computer Science in California. A lot of people ask me, how did you come to Germany from California? In 2008, my colleague Lilly Irani and I built a website called Turkopticon.

2 Turkopticon is used by workers on Amazon's Mechanical Turk platform to review customers. Turkopticon is used by around 30,000 workers, mostly in the US and India. So I've been involved on the "worker side" in online labor markets for almost nine years. I got into this on the "worker side" but also on the "technology side". My bachelor's degree is in engineering and then I was a programmer for a while. So I am not an economist, but I will make some comments now that you might call "economic". I have seven points. I'll call them hypotheses, because as I said, I am not an economist, and as we all know, prediction is difficult, especially about the future. [S12] First, markets for white collar work are becoming more global. I'll overstate this: eventually, any work that can be done remotely will be done by workers competing in a global labor market. [S13] Second, Germany and Scandinavia will not escape this. Our strong unions, progressive regulators, socially responsible businesses, and obscure languages will not protect us from global competition forever. I searched for freelancers on Upwork who can speak Swedish. [S14] I found Marie. She was a lawyer in Sweden, apparently now she lives in the US, she charges thirty dollars per hour. She has earned over thirty thousand dollars over the platform. [S15]

3 Anders can speak Swedish, he can write software for you, he has earned over one hundred thousand dollars over the platform. [S16-17] Here are some more. [S18] If you think, well, Swedish language proficiency is not necessary, but what about very complex technical work? Here is Mehrdad, he is in Canada and has two Masters degrees, one in computational fluid dynamics with aerospace applications. He is charging forty dollars per hour and has earned ninety thousand dollars over the platform. [S19] We can go on. [S20] And on. This software agency in India has earned over 500 thousand dollars over the platform. [S21] What about Germany? Daimler is apparently outsourcing some service design to Jovoto, which is a German 'innovation platform' that runs contests for creative projects. The people participating in these projects are all over the world. [S22] Deutsche Bank is also running some contests to develop 'innovative ideas'. [S23] Engineering work can also be organized via a contest model. This is Local Motors, an American platform.

4 They received some investment from Airbus to design a cargo drone. [S24] The total money paid in prizes to contest winners was around 120 thousand dollars. [S25] There are engineering calculations behind each design, it is not just a 3D model. So, yes, high skilled work is being already performed globally over platforms, to high quality. Back to my eight points. [S26] Third point, this is good for many people in developing countries. Although it may be less good for some people in rich countries. [S27] Fourth, the question of who wins and loses in the long term is more complicated to answer. The relevant categories here are not only rich and poor countries. It is also not only about high and low skill workers in the narrow technical sense. You know this already, it is about human capital in a broader sense - so called soft skills, the networks people are a part of, how people communicate and market themselves, and so on. In the short to medium term, the globalization of white collar labor markets will benefit those workers most who are already 'most advantaged' in these ways, wherever they are. In the long term, there are more complicated questions. For example, is it good for developing countries that workers there with English and IT competence are not contributing to the development of local IT industries but instead writing Yelp reviews for businesses in America that they have never been to or heard

5 of? Research by Uma Rani at the ILO has shown us that this is already happening. After all, it pays about the same and they can do it from home. Also, large global labor platforms will be very powerful and difficult to regulate, just as Google and Facebook are now. I don't want to be too gloomy, but democracy may be a loser in these developments. With respect to workplace democracy - well, the platform can be changed at any time by the operator, for their convenience. Suppose they change the order in which workers are listed in search results. As a worker, this can end your career overnight. What about democracy in our countries? Well, we know that worker participation moderates economic inequality. [S28] Rising economic inequality and social exclusion seem to have something to do with recent political movements in some rich countries, both on the left and on the right. I said I am not an economist; I am also not a political scientist. But from what I have understood, many people in rich countries who support apparently anti-democratic movements are not necessarily anti-democratic as a matter of ideology; rather, they are mainly expressing dissatisfaction with the existing economic order. This makes sense to me. In many places in rich countries, in my country, for example, the United States, yes, not so much in Sweden, I know, people really do not have good economic prospects; they also do not really have the other kinds of 'human capital' needed to participate meaningfully in the economy, or in society broadly. So they vote to destroy the system. So the future of worker power is connected with the future of democracy. This is probably not a controversial statement in Sweden. However... [S29] Fifth, shaping these processes meaningfully at a global level seems to be beyond the *current* capabilities of national and international trade unions and governments. We are doing some things, however. For the past two years in Germany we have been meeting with platform workers, platform operators, researchers, and other unions, and communicating with journalists.

6 Mainly we have been supporting these different groups to get to know each other and to build shared understanding and trust. Last year six German platforms allowed us to survey their workers. We surveyed about 100 workers on each platform. Among other things, we asked them to prioritize the items in the Code of Conduct. By far the most important was 'fair payment'. This was true even among workers who did not earn much money on the platform they were working on and so were not relying on their platform work for a major share of their income. So now if anyone tells us that crowd workers do this work just for fun, or just to pass time, we can tell them, no, fun is important, but money is the key motivator. If they just wanted to do something fun or interesting and did not care about the money, they would edit Wikipedia. We took this result to the platform operators as we were working together to create the second version of the Code of Conduct. As a result, the new text under 'fair payment' says that platforms will orient to 'local wage standards' when setting prices. [S30] This is not the same as agreeing to comply with federal minimum wage, but it is better than the last version. Another thing workers keep telling us in the workshops is that they feel misunderstood. [S31] As a practical matter, the tax authority does not understand what they are doing. But maybe worse, they are portrayed in the media as idiots. If you are working for two euros per hour, you must be an idiot. There are some low paying tasks, but that is not the whole picture.

7 Also, it is not productive to portray the problem of low paying tasks as the fault of the worker. Sometimes the platform operators design the systems so that people must do these tasks to get qualified for higher paying work. So we need to communicate a much more nuanced view of what is happening to policy makers and the public. We are thinking now about how to build working groups so workers can have ways to "talk back" to media and policy makers. This would involve both correcting overly simplistic media reports but also help bring attention to some other problems which are not reported on. We hope this will also be good for the platforms so we hope the platform operators will continue to work with us on this. [S32] We feel that these efforts are worthwhile and important. In the long term however they will not be enough to avoid the risks posed by global labor markets. Most of the platform workers are not in our countries, but workers in our countries will compete with them. Even the workers who are in our countries will be working on platforms based in other countries, for clients in other countries. Research by Mark Graham and colleagues at Oxford has shown us that workers in sub-saharan Africa feel that they cannot ask for higher prices or better working conditions because they expect that workers in southeast Asia will underbid them. So there is already a race to the bottom among platform workers in the global south. How can we stop this? How can we avoid a global race to the bottom? Global efforts are needed. [S33] We need to establish dialogue with the big platforms. We need to network workers so they can share information and learn about their rights. We need to collect data about who is doing what work for whom, for how much money, and under what conditions.

8 There are a few projects in early stages trying to create certification systems for fair working conditions on platforms. One of these is our Fair Crowd Work project. You see we have star ratings for some of the platforms. [S34] We also rate the legal terms, the contracts workers must agree to. We are updating this rating system now. There are also some efforts to create an independent not for profit organization that would audit and certify platform working conditions. This could be similar to the Fair Trade labeling organizations. I think this is a good idea and I am supporting it. This organization could be "competence center" with a mandate to investigate working conditions and support workers anywhere in the world. Some issues facing workers on global platforms are the same no matter what country they are in. An Upwork worker in India and an Upwork worker in Sweden may have some questions that should be answered by national organizations, for example about taxation. However many of their questions will be about Upwork. Workers will also need to network across borders and perhaps coordinate collective actions at global level. It would make sense to locate support functions for these activities in a competence center with a global mandate that works closely with national unions and regulators, rather than in a national or even European trade union or confederation. Mark Graham, whose research I mentioned before, is involved with this, and one version of the proposal is online here. [S35] I think the ILO is doing something too, but I don't know details yet. I have heard that maybe there will be a new Convention. This sounds exciting. As you think about what to prioritize and fund in this area in the next few years, I hope you will consider this global angle strongly and the specific proposal to create a competence center with a global mandate. I don't think there are that many platform workers in Sweden yet. But as you know, things change. And as you know, Sweden is connected to the rest of the world.