THE F

REELANCE L

ABOR

ECONOMY

TH

E N

EW

FR

EE

LA

BO

R?

THE ISSUE

• New model of work does not protect workers •Minimum wage, antidiscrimination, workers’ compensation, union-organizing right, etc.

ARGUMENT

F R E E L A N C E W O R K E R S

• Aforementioned legal protections do not apply

• Often times, companies have strict rules on how the job must be done

C O M P A N I E S

• Offers flexible work

• Only supposed to be supplementary income

CASE STUDY: CROWDFLOWER LAWSUIT

• Sometimes paid as little as $2-$3 an hour or in points for online reward programs and videogame credits

• 20,000 workers are involved in the suit

• Judge denied CrowdFlower settlement offer of more that $585,000

ETHICS

• Utilitarianism: most individual contractors are happy and make reasonable money

• Kantian: we would not want all companies to be able to get around labor laws

• Stockholder: companies are very profitable and still follow the laws

• Stakeholder: not all stakeholders are benefitting

SHOULD COMPANIES THAT PRIMARILY USE FREELANCE LABOR BE SUBJECTED TO TRADITIONAL LABOR LAWS?

REFERENCE

Weber, Lauren and Rachel Emma Silverman. "On-Demand Workers: 'We Are Not

Robots'.” 27 January 2015. Wall Street Journal. February 2015.

<www.wsj.com/articles/on-demand-workers-are-not-robots-1422406524>.