There are an estimated 67 million domestic workers globally, 80% of whom are women. Many of them work in low-paid, insecure and exploitative conditions. Technology-focused companies linking households to domestic workers through ‘on-demand’ platforms are attempting to disrupt the traditional sector, claiming to offer rapidly accessible, cheap domestic services to households, and flexible, well-remunerated economic...

Peter Harris gave a keynote presentation to the Australian Labour Law Association Conference on 4 November 2016 in Melbourne, almost twelve months after the Productivity Commission completed its Inquiry Report into Workplace Relations.

Uber manages a large, disaggregated workforce through its ridehail platform, one that delivers a relatively standardized experience to passengers while simultaneously promoting its drivers as entrepreneurs whose work is characterized by freedom, flexibility, and independence. Through a nine-month empirical study of Uber driver experiences, we found that Uber does leverage significant indirect control over how...

The Unions NSW report provides a case study of Airtasker, looking specifically at the industrial implications for workers. Airtasker is the leading provider of online facilitated task-based work, and is representative of the industrial risks associated with the disintegration of traditional jobs into short term tasks, often referred to as the ‘gig economy’. The Unions...

The growth of the "on-demand" services sector has spurred a vigorous debate on the changing nature of the U.S. economy and the implications for American workers. The “on-demand” economy refers to the growing number of businesses that connect service providers to customers through the assistance of information technology -- particularly “apps” accessible on smart phones.