The gig economy is a fig-leaf to cover something darker in the world of work
AS the snow began to clear, among the debris left in its wake were the remnants of what some people still insist on calling an enlightened employment policy in some sectors. In Scotland and the UK we cling fondly to the belief that the modern-day workplace is an environment far removed from the sweat-shop empires of Britain’s 19th century industrialists.
These places returned fat profits for owners who wrung every ounce of sweat and toil from employees in exchange for the lowest rate of remuneration the market would permit. In this Dickensian twilight any form of physical weakness or ill health meant instant dismissal with no pay and anyone foolish enough to protest would also be dispensed with.
It’s ironic that the great liberal reforms in workplace rights at the start of the century were ushered through on the back of some lamentable performances by the British Army in Crimea and against the Boers. Your average British foot-soldier was being out-muscled by brawnier opponents so, by Jove, we had better start fattening the blighters up a little; and so sickness benefits, paid holiday entitlement, National Insurance and some trade union representation were permitted.
For many of the UK’S 21st century workers it must seem that little has changed between the Victorian workplaces of their forbears and what they are experiencing at present. As the snow brought Scotland to its knees many workers found themselves trapped between competing messages.
The Scottish Government, eager to be seen in control of events, began to issue strident messages that implied criticism of people who irresponsibly ignored warnings to stay off the road. The entire transport network bowed down before this message. It got to the stage where to go to your work was to risk being shunned by decent members of society.
Yet many found that, if they disobeyed the Government’s advice, they risked being docked pay or even being disciplined for failing to turn up for work. These weren’t just so-called cowboy haulage firms and other grasping businesses called out by the First Minister .
One employee of a local authority described her situation to me on the proviso that she remained anonymous. “On the Wednesday anyone who didn’t come into work due to the snow was only being paid from 1pm onwards when the offices closed. As we work on a flexible system some were paying the time back by working extra hours.”
The gig economy is a clean phrase coined to act as a fig-leaf to cover something darker in the world of work. It describes any labour market dominated by short-term contracts or freelance work, devoid of any trade union protection. It is used by some of our biggest multi-nationals to extract the maximum profit for the least outlay. They favour these because they don’t require any long-term commitment or the notion of job security.
Many of the workers trapped in this web are among the 20% in Scotland who are paid at a rate beneath the Real Living Wage, set by the Living Wage Foundation and calculated on the cost of living based on the price of a basket of household goods and services. The firms refusing to pay this rate of £8.75 per hour take refuge in the Government’s statutory minimum of £7.50, a rate which would result in a fit of the giggles at the bank if you asked for a small overdraft or, God forbid, a mortgage. And that’s assuming you had the spare £20,000 to put down as a deposit on a house worth £100,000, well below the average cost of a home in Scotland.
No figures have yet been gathered on the number of people who have been asked to do unpaid trial shifts of up to a week by employers keen to take advantage of the desperation of the jobless. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been told of young people being exploited by successful restaurant chains in this manner.
Under the Conservatives, who in their twisted dogma have opposed every advancement in the rights of workers since the birth of the trade unions, a hard Brexit will allow them and their principal backers to subvert such workplace protections as exist at present.
The employment figures of successive UK governments are never quantified to show which are real and sustainable jobs and which are intermittent respites from long-term insecurity and poverty offered by opportunistic business owners. Other figures hint at the true nature of employment in Scotland. They are to be found in the 250,000 children living in poverty and the massive increases in people using foodbanks, many of whom found that their wages did not cover the basic cost of providing for a small household. Last year a study by Oxford University found that a combination of poverty and destitution, overhauls to the benefits system and a rising cost of living would ensure surging food bank use for years to come.
The erosion of the dignity that comes with being paid properly in exchange for your skills comes quietly and by many little artifices such as the gig economy, the minimum wage, trial shifts, unpaid internships and the rejection of trade unions. Along with the Department of Work and Pensions’ harassment of benefits recipients, it feeds homelessness. It rewards the biggest culprits: those in our financial institutions whose avarice led to the collapse of the economy.
Charles Dickens wrote in his historical novel Barnaby Rudge (1841): “To be shelterless and alone in the open country, hearing the wind moan and watching for day through the whole long weary night; to listen to the falling rain, and crouch for warmth beneath the lee of some old barn or rick, or in the hollow of a tree; are dismal things – but not so dismal as the wandering up and down where shelter is, and beds and sleepers are by the thousands; a houseless rejected creature.”
Dickens would surely have been appalled to find that thousands of people still exist like this 177 years later. Perhaps not though, as he had already grasped that right-wing governments prize greed above all other human behaviours.
Many of the workers trapped in this web are among the 20% paid at a rate beneath the Real Living Wage