Uber — the “technological innovator” that figured out how to offload the costs of doing business to its workers in the transpiration industry — has a new scam scheme to skim money off workers in the temporary employment industry. Yay, progress, amirite?
Temporary employment has a long history and useful place in society and the economy. Even back in the Age of Dinosaurs when I was young, temp work was a viable choice for many people. I spent several summers doing clerical work in offices where regular employees were on vacation or sick leave or a surge or backlog required additional help. In other words, stuff happens … and businesses need workers for a short time.
As long as I can remember, there were agencies that handled those needs. Instead of individually going around to sundry companies and offering one’s services ad hoc, we would sign up with one or more of the agencies. Then when a company had a need arise, it would contact the agencies, who would temporarily fill the position from their pool of qualified registered workers.
Amazingly enough, that exact same system works to this very day. Nevertheless, the greedy bastards geniuses at Uber have decided that this business model needs disrupting and they know just how to do it.
Uber has a new app — Uber Works — that will connect available workers to available temporary jobs. The app shows the potential temp worker the hours/schedule, gross pay, description of duties, and so on. In other words, it seems rather similar to their app that matches drivers and clients.
Now here’s the really ingenious bit: Uber isn’t going to connect the workers with the actual employers. No, it’s partnering with temp staffing agencies who will do the actual interviewing, hiring, benefits management, tax withholding, and all of those other pesky tasks that employers have to do. What Uber contributes to this process is … wait for it … nothing.
Well, maybe that’s harsh, They do have an attractive looking application for people’s smartphones, so that’s something, I guess.
The idea that this is transformative is ridiculous. In most localities, there are a limited number of temp staffing agencies. For would-be workers, it’s pretty easy to sign up with the two or three or four such agencies that handle the kind of work they’re interested in (many specialize, so one might focus on office and clerical work, another handles factory jobs, and so on).
There are no details available yet of how much Uber’s cut will be on these gigs. Whatever it is, it’s extracting a portion of the potential worker pay without providing any real value; companies aren’t going to cough up extra for Uber so they will lower the wages slightly to cover those costs. Perhaps it won’t be a lot but for many workers, especially temps who do not work full-time or regularly, siphoning off even a small percentage of their paychecks to Uber’s coffers can make a negative difference.
Suspicious minded as I am, I anticipate Uber using this as a foot-in-the-door. Get companies used to agreeing that a temp agency can place their openings on Uber Works and get workers used to consulting that app for possible gigs; then cut out the intermediaries — the temp agencies — and take over the entire industry. It’s just what they’ve tried to do in personal transportation so don’t put on your shocked face.
At that point, we could see true disruption of the temporary worker economy. Imagine some worst case scenarios — actually you don’t need to imagine them, I already did it for you a few years ago when I wrote a satirical piece describing Uber’s entry into retail:
Walmart and Uber team up to transform the economy with Wubermart superstores
Think about more and more companies cutting their payroll costs by eliminating full-time employees in favor of Uber temps who will submit the winning (that is, lowest paying) bid to do jobs — stock shelves for a fixed rate of $1 per shelf or do data entry as piece work at a rate that pays less than minimum wage, with no benefits. There’s no bottom when pitting desperate people against one another.
And, of course, this is Uber. So, unlike many temp agencies which have offered benefits, we would expect Uber’s temps to receive absolutely nothing. Sorry, I forgot. Uber has been floating the idea of “payday loans” for its employees independent contractors so I guess we could expect the Uber temps to be able to enjoy the benefits of endless debt to the company store, so to speak.
That, my friends, is the ideal world of neo-feudalism that venture capitalists, the titans of Silicon Valley, and the Koch and Walton types of 1%-ers hope will be our future. The more they can skim off the top and the more precarious and desperate they can make the workforce, the more they will proclaim that they’re brilliant humanitarians bringing liberty, flexibility, and empowerment to the peons.
Sadly, a lot of the peons will gratefully tug their forelocks and thank them for it.
Sources
Uber's new app will match temporary workers with job vacancies by Marietta Moon at Engadget
Uber Launches An App To Connect Job Seekers With Gig Work by Peter Talbot at NPR