Hustle and Gig

by Alexandrea J Ravenelle

  PROTECTING WORKERS IN THE NEW ECONOMY

  These stories suggest that working in the so-called sharing economy both increases the risk that workers will get hurt on the job and forces them to assume sole financial responsibility for dealing with any such injuries to themselves or their property. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Not all sharing economy companies embrace the independent contractor model. Some start-ups have made an active decision to pay workers as employees, with all of the protections that entails—and without destroying their business model.

  For instance, MyClean, a New York–based on-demand cleaning service, originally contracted with local cleaning companies that had their own W-2 employees. The company soon moved to hiring workers as employees. According to a blog posting on their website, this move to employees was integral in growing the company from a bootstrapped start-up to a force of more than one hundred cleaners, and it helped the company increase monthly revenue from fifteen thousand dollars to more than three hundred thousand in just three years. Paying workers as employees strengthened the company and its reputation by improving customer satisfaction, leading to reduced customer-acquisition costs. MyClean’s CEO, Michael Scharf, explained, “We see [independent contractors] as a legal risk. We also want, for lack of a better word, control—the ability to manage, dispatch, train, have processes in place for what our end service looks like. We wanted MyClean to have one consistent level of service.”

  Munchery, a food delivery service, also pays workers as employees. Unlike Uber or TaskRabbit or Airbnb, Munchery includes all of its available positions on one page of its website—there’s not a separate site for delivery personnel as opposed to programmers. In addition, each listing notes, “Unlike other companies who hire drivers and couriers, you are an employee of Munchery, not a contractor. As Munchery employees, you get all the perks and benefits associated with being an employee!”

  Even without making workers full employees, some start-ups are taking steps to protect them from workplace dangers. In July 2014, Postmates, a sharing economy delivery service, announced that it was offering its couriers full access to general liability insurance, auto excess insurance, and accidental occupational liability while on duty. Although most transportation and delivery services, such as Uber and Lyft, offer general liability insurance to protect individuals hurt by workers, the Postmates accidental occupational liability policy is otherwise unmatched by any competitor (as of this writing). The policy, which has a fifty-thousand-dollar limit, covers medical expenses for injuries incurred while on the job.31

  Fortunately, for Cody, a twenty-two-year-old African American male, he was on a run for Postmates when he crashed his bike a few months before we met. “I was coming down Fifth Avenue and Twenty-Second. So, you know, Twenty-Second is a straight lane. I had to edge out. . . . You know people in Manhattan. They go across even though they’re ahead of the light. They think that they’ve got it,” he said, referring to the documented practice of New Yorkers stepping into the street to cross before the walk signal is triggered.32 “So first I’m yelling, ‘Move away!’ And the boyfriend of the lady gets over, and the lady just stood there.”

  Cody tried to dodge her. “I went left, she went left. I went right, she went right. I stopped. By the time I fully stopped, the impact of my bike hit her. And I grabbed her so she wouldn’t go into the street. I grabbed her to swing around with her. So I hit the back of my head; but I had a lot of hair, so I didn’t get a full impact. But her, she got knocked out.”

  “There was a car coming, too, next to me. So if I hit her, the car would hit her, too—and it would have been worse,” he said, explaining why he swung around with the woman. “So I grabbed her. I hit her, grabbed her, and turned. And so my back hit, hit the floor.”

  Even though he landed on his back and head—and wasn’t wearing a helmet—the most severe damage was to his leg. When he landed, his leg was caught near the wheel and folded backward, tearing a ligament. He was in the hospital for two days and then in a rigid knee brace for two months. The accident destroyed his bike and the brace prevented him from riding—pausing both his livelihood and his main form of transportation to college classes. He had to use a cane to get around.

  “I had to take the bus. Hard for me to get into the bus. People were rushing me,” he said. He started physical therapy and acupuncture, and eventually he began biking recreationally, ignoring the pain in his leg. “[The physical therapist] was like, ‘If you feel pain, just tell me.’ And I was like, ‘I do feel pain, but I don’t want to acknowledge the pain.’ He was like, ‘This is not good.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s not good, but this is how I’ve been dealing with my life, because I play soccer.’ I go on the field. You’re not coming off . . . because of the pain. You’re just gonna wait until the game is done.”

  As a twenty-two-year-old full-time student, Cody was covered under his mother’s insurance—and the Postmates policy. The bill for his injuries was split between his medical coverage and the Postmates insurance plan. “Postmates insures you. Like if you get in an accident while working, you have to send them an email. And if [someone is] trying to sue you, they will try to help you with the case and everything,” he said. “It’s a way of safety for us because we’re working for them”

  The rhetoric against making workers employees tends to argue that doing so would limit workers’ freedom: people might be required to work forty hours a week or report for shifts that don’t fit their schedule. But Cody’s experience as a bike messenger for Postmates, a sharing economy service, suggests that workers can be covered for injuries that arise on the job, while still experiencing the flexibility that is often seen as the prime appeal of this work. Or as Cody put it, “If something happened while we’re on the platform, it’s basically their job to help us if we need it.”

  The sharing economy—rather than moving the world of work forward—is returning us to the workplace of the early industrial age, where workers had minimal workplace-safety protection and individuals injured on the job had no recourse for physical impairments or the loss of income. Likewise, just as workers had no recourse for on-the-job injuries, they have no protections from sexual harassment. While “sharing is caring” is often bandied about as one of the reasons why people participate in free or low-cost sharing economy services,33 it also lends itself to antiphrasis when workers find themselves in sexually uncomfortable situations, or when others incorporate sex into their understanding of customer service.

  5

  Sharing Is Caring

  “Do you want to go back to my place?”

  Homes are generally considered to be private, intimate locations. Inviting someone to your home can be a signal of friendship, sexual desire, or familial closeness. We rarely let outsiders into our bedrooms or onto our couches. We teach children to never open the door to strangers and to lock the door when their parents leave for work. At the same time, the sharing economy, with its focus on peer-to-peer service, often relies on unknown people entering the home of a fellow unknown either to cook (Kitchensurfing), or to sleep (Airbnb), or to clean, make minor repairs, or assemble furniture (TaskRabbit). Meanwhile, Lyft and Uber and other app-driven car services involve people getting in a stranger’s vehicle—violating one of the first “stranger danger” rules that many children learn.

  In response to many people’s leeriness of strangers, sharing economy companies often promote their background screening mechanisms. For example, TaskRabbit’s website notes that Taskers must pass an identity check, are screened for criminal offenses, and must attend an orientation. Uber drivers in New York City are required to undergo the same background checks and fingerprinting as taxi drivers. Drivers in other cities and states, however, may undergo only a background check that looks for criminal records within the last seven years; critics have alleged that even such minimal background checks have been easily sidestepped.1 Airbnb relies on Facebook or LinkedIn identity verifications, while the Kitchensurfing marketplace’s backgroun
d checks for chefs seem to have been limited to a test meal audition in the platform’s corporate kitchen.

  In addition, most companies promote the idea that their workers are insured and bonded. If something does go wrong—if a TaskRabbit drops a flat-screen TV, or if a passenger is injured in an Uber—the damage is covered. For instance, TaskRabbit’s website notes that every task has guaranteed insurance coverage of up to one million dollars, before quickly noting that this “is secondary coverage to any insurance or policies you already have in place. These would include medical insurance coverage, renter’s insurance, homeowner’s insurance or an umbrella policy.”

  Even though workers are screened and insured, clients are not. The terms of service ostensibly prevent clients from setting up multiple accounts, but as long as one has access to multiple email addresses and credit cards, it’s very easy to create numerous identities. Worker profiles are often much more complete than those of clients and include a photo and short biography. TaskRabbit, in particular, requires workers to supply additional information for their profiles before it allows them to “pass” orientation. As a result, clients can generally rest assured that they have a fairly good idea of who they’re hiring or letting into their homes, but workers don’t have the same luxury. In addition, to protect identities, TaskRabbit provides only the first name and the first initial of a customer’s or worker’s last name. Unless there is an unusual spelling or additional details, Googling for more information is nearly impossible.

  Illustrative of the possible danger of entering a stranger’s abode, several TaskRabbits told me that one Tasker had accepted a gig to clean a man’s boat, but that their follow-up conversations led the Tasker to become suspicious of his task description. The woman looked her client up online and learned that he was a convicted sex offender. She quickly cancelled the task.

  Although it’s impossible to determine if this story is a true account, even if it is an urban legend, the fact that it was repeated to me several times suggests a sense of discomfort with the imbalance of background checking and resulting risk in the sharing economy. As Jasmine, a twenty-three-year-old worker, put it:

  Well, I don’t know how they do it now; but before, I felt like they would let anybody get on the website as a client. But it was so strict to be a Tasker. And I didn’t like that, because sometimes I would get people who wouldn’t have a profile picture [and] they would have no reviews. They would basically have nothing on their page, but they want to hire you. And I’m like, how is that fair that we have to basically give them blood, and then they will let anybody come on the website? I just feel like you can’t say you’re worried about our safety if you allow any type of person to be on the website. . . . I think they should definitely go through a background check, too, or something. They need something to verify that they’re a real person. . . . Just because I haven’t had any [bad] experiences, doesn’t mean someone else hasn’t. I have no idea what other people might have been through. Or, even if they didn’t go through the task and it was sketchy, maybe they thought it was sketchy before they got there and wanted to cancel. I don’t know. I just think for the safety aspect, it should be verified on both ends.

  “THEY LOOK FOR OPPORTUNITIES EVERYWHERE”

  None of the workers I interviewed, for any of the services, had been sexually assaulted on the job. But even though my interview guide didn’t include any questions on sexual harassment, a surprisingly large number of workers mentioned sexually uncomfortable situations. Jasmine noted that some TaskRabbit clients were especially generous when she was in their home: “‘Have some wine. Do you want to smoke [marijuana]?’ Like, ‘I’m okay. Thank you. I have a job after this. I have to get home.’ Those are usually the guys.”

  Jasmine also noted that she sometimes was hit on, often through a text message after the task. And then there was the cleaning task where she wasn’t exactly hit on, but there seemed to be a invitation of some sort on the table.

  I had one job where, [when] I went the first time, he wasn’t there. He left his key. I cleaned the house. He had his lotion on the side of the table, soiled sheets, like obviously there was some rough-and-tumble before. Okay. So that was, I think, the first test. The second time I went, he wasn’t there again. I did this job three times. It was always the same situation—you know, same dirty-sheet situation, lotion next to the bed, box of condoms, wine on the table. Like, you know what’s going on. So again I’m just like, “Whatever.” I clean it up. I have my gloves. Blind eye, I’m here to help.

  Third time, he was there. I don’t know how the conversation came up; but he was like, “Does anyone ever hit on you?” All awkward: “Anyone ever hit on you?” I’m like, “Sometimes it gets really uncomfortable.” I’m just speaking as myself, so I’m not thinking of the context. “Yeah, sometimes it’s uncomfortable when I clean for some men and they hit on me or . . .” And I said something to that regard. He’s like, “Okay.”

  And two minutes later he’s like, “I got all my stuff. I’m going to go to the café across the street so I’m out of your way.” I was like, “Oh, okay.” And I thought to myself, “Oh my God, was he trying to . . .?” I think he was testing me those last two times. I don’t know—like they look for opportunities everywhere.

  Getting hit on while working isn’t limited to female Taskers. Twentysomething Austin was the only Tasker outside of New York City whom I interviewed. A full-time engineer, he was a true example of a Striver. Married, with a relatively high income, he took on TaskRabbit work only in the evenings and on weekends, which served as a source of “quick easy money for beer or whatever.” In three weeks of tasking, Austin completed more than twenty tasks, ranging from picking up and delivering pillows to a home to installing 250-pound storage shelves on the ceiling of a client’s garage, directly above a Porsche and several Range Rovers—a project he described as “a little bit intimidating.”

  I would say out of the twenty tasks I’ve had, most of them have been—it’s different—it’s different clients. So some of them are older women that just physically can’t do it. Some of them are lazy people, some of them are guys, whatever, middle-aged guys that just don’t have the ability. But there definitely have been several younger girls or women that, I think, if I was single [chuckles], I think I probably could have gotten a date.

  In all honestly it almost seemed like that was what they’re looking for. . . . It seems like they definitely were looking for something, but when I said I was married, they’re like, “Oh, okay.” So yeah, I can definitely see it being like a sort of pseudo-dating service. Because a good-looking guy comes in and he’s handy.

  Another male Tasker, Shaun, found that a fairly standard task—packing and moving boxes—took a rather unusual turn when he found himself privy to a private conversation that he was “trying my best to forget about.”

  It was an older woman and younger man. I was packing, and then they were having this argument, not in front of me, but in the bedroom. I heard a few things which kind of sounded off, but I didn’t really pay too much attention. And then it turns out that the people I thought were a couple were actually mother and son. And they were talking about incest behavior. . . . The son just came out and looks at me like, “You didn’t hear anything at all, did you?” I was like, “Nope.” He’s like, “Okay.”

  When we were done, the son stepped out and his girlfriend came into the apartment. They were speaking, and she was speaking to the mother, all normal. And so I left, and the girlfriend came by, and she’s like, “Oh, I saw you earlier.” I’m like, “Don’t mind me, I’m just moving help. I’m leaving.” And then she said, “Just so you know, my boyfriend has this close relationship with his mother.” And then I said, “I don’t want to know, I’m just leaving.” You know: Just let me go, I really didn’t want to hear anything about it anymore.

  And then she’s like, “You know they’re moving,” and I said, “Yeah, I understand.” She’s like, “I always want to get revenge,” and I’m like
, “No.”

  And my mind is like: “No, I shouldn’t entertain this conversion any further.” It gets to a point where she started having this kind of fetish, and then I’m like, I don’t like where this conversation is going. So I say, “I have to see someone about a horse,” and then I just excused myself and left. I felt very uncomfortable.

  Many Taskers provided errand-running services or were hired as one-day temps with local companies; as a result, Taskers found themselves in people’s private homes, with the clients, only a fraction of the time. Kitchensurfing chefs, by virtue of the service’s focus on providing a chef-created meal in the comfort of one’s home, almost always found themselves in people’s homes and interacting with their customers one-on-one. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they also reported more interactions with sexual overtones or other situations that simply made them feel uncomfortable.

  For instance, Roxanne, twenty-seven, a Kitchensurfing chef with colorful hair and assorted body art, had several clients ask to take selfies with her, including one client whom she described as “weirding” her out: