Being
"liberated" to work short-term jobs on-demand means you're on your
own.
No doubt you’ll be thrilled to learn that we now live and work
in a “gig economy.”
That’s the latest corporate buzz-phrase from Silicon Valley.
CEOs there are hailing a Brave New Workplace in which we lucky
worker bees no longer have to be stuck in traditional jobs with traditional
hours — or traditional middle-class pay scales, traditional benefits,
traditional job security, and all those other fusty “traditions” of the old
workplace.
In fact, in the gig economy, you don’t even get a workplace.
Rather, you’re “liberated” to work in a series of short-term jobs in many
places. And instead of being stuck in a 9-to-5, you’ll always be on-call
through a mobile app on your smart phone or through a temp agency.
How exciting is that?
You might have lots of calls to work this week, but then many
weeks with no calls at all. And don’t get sick or injured, because there’s no
health care or workers’ comp provided. Forget about a pension — your retirement
plan is called “adios chump.”
This “alternative work arrangement” isn’t a futuristic concept —
it’s already here and spreading fast. According to one study, some 16 percent of U.S. workers are now in this on-call,
temporary, part-time, low-pay, you’re-on-your-own economy — up from only 10
percent a decade ago.
Backed by the economists and politicians they purchase,
corporate chieftains are creating what they call a workforce of non-employees
for one reason: greed. It directly transfers more money and power from workaday
families into the coffers of moneyed elites.
Their gig economy is aptly named, for “gigs” are crude four-hook
fishing devices. They’re dragged by commercial fleets through schools of fish
to impale them, haul them in, and cash in on the pain.
OtherWords
columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker.
He’s the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. OtherWords.org.