Gig Rights & Gig Wrongs Initial Findings from the Gig Rights Project: Labour Rights, Co-Determination, Collectivism and Job Quality in the UK Gig Economy

Abstract

Attempts to investigate working conditions and labour rights in the UK gig economy have been hampered by the hard-to-reach nature of this population. Most existing studies have overcome this difficulty by using a qualitative research design where sample size is less important. When UK quantitative studies have been undertaken they have either been weakened by relatively small and potentially biased samples or undertaken with the support of platform companies with important questions relating to labour rights not being asked.1 The Gig Rights Project sought to fill this void by generating a novel non-probability sample of gig workers by advertising our survey directly to UK gig workers active on Internet platforms.2 The result is a unique sample of 510 UK workers that we believe spans the diversity of the gig economy. Our diverse sample allows us to investigate the degree to which a broad range of factors influence work experiences and shape views towards labour rights, including whether the work is undertaken remotely or in local proximity to the customer, workers are migrants or UK-born, male or female, younger or older, or more or less educated.

Keywords: Gig economy, platform work, job quality, labour rights, trade unons