The ‘Gig Economy’ and its Influence on Academia

The rapid advancement of technology has had a significant impact on the foundation of the global economy. Apps like Uber, Rappi, and Glovo changed how the labor market is structured, and the companies that generate jobs.

This is called the gig economy or sharing economy. It consists of the construction of labor relations through application-managed outsourcing. In the gig economy, people who engage in work relationships with businesses become service providers or “partners” who do independent or project work but generally don’t have an employment contract. The advantage of this mode is that they can manage their working hours and earnings as they see fit. The disadvantage is that they do not have formal employment; those who work in this modality do not have any of the rights and protections that an employee would have.

In the United States, more than 57 million people are independent or freelance workers and have experienced the sharing economy; in Mexico, freelancers exceed 14 million.

The Anatomy of the Gig Academy

Adrianne Kezar is a professor at the University of Southern California and Director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education. She has dedicated her career to research and activism in favor of a fair labor market for teachers and academic staff. Kezar has noted changes in the working dimension of academia since before the advent of the sharing economy. Educational institutions began to develop a trend that, to date, continues to grow within the ranks of instructional staff, namely, reliance on adjunct or associate educational professionals.

More and more, universities depend on the work of adjunct employees who do not have a permanent position in the institution and who do not receive the benefits associated with full-time positions. This practice has created a lack of job security and insufficient working conditions for millions of educators, which ends up hurting the quality of the educational experience of the students. If the institutions do not satisfy the employment needs of the teaching staff, they will not be able to ensure a high standard of education.

This trend is evolving into something that Kezar considers a significant threat: the “gigification” of academia. Adopting a sharing-economy model for academia would have severe consequences for the working conditions of educational professionals. If educational institutions follow the model of companies like Uber, the teachers would not be there; they would become independent workers without a platform to help them obtain the necessary development to be capable in their work. Kezar describes in detail what such an academic scene would look like:

“A de-professionalized and cheap workforce; incapable workers recruited through outsourcing; using technology to reduce labor costs; delegating production costs to employees, a micro-enterprise ethic, and administrative control over the supply and demand of work.”

We have all come across a delivery man, when using some applications like Deliveroo or Glovo, that brings the wrong order; a driver who does not drive well or who speeds because he has a quota of deliveries per day that he is obliged to meet in order to be paid. These are some of the risks of next-day deliveries or applications that follow this model. These are some of the dangers of contract services via an app. There is a margin of error, and it is something that we assume without a significant problem, but would we be disposed to be this flexible with the quality of educational offerings? What would be the long-term cost of this?

Positive working environments are crucial for human development; the conditions cannot be created for real education without this. Rezak argues that two decades ago, before all these changes began to take place, universities and schools were known for generating healthy work environments and interaction. He explained that the situation is now the opposite, with educational institutions receiving low grades in the matter of work environment compared to other organizations and businesses.

“The structures and mechanisms that channel human relationships in the sharing academy increase the stress of academic workers, creating mistrust among colleagues and turning originally cooperative relationships into antagonistic ones,” argues Rezak, the author of the book, “The Gig Academy.” She explains that this situation forces academy workers to use much more of their time and energy to generate strategies that help them survive in an insecure, low-paid, and highly exploitative work environment.

The first downturn of an educational labor market under these conditions is the ability of educational institutions to create a community. This is a substantial change in the way we view the transmission of knowledge at the institutional level. Education is nourished by communication and cooperation among teachers and students in the classroom and the communication they have with the rest of the staff comprising the institution. This is what forms an educational community; without channels that ensure the proper functioning of this dynamic, we would be losing fundamental elements of the educational experience.

Some strategies can be taken to prevent erosion of the educational offering caused by the adoption of the sharing economy system at the academy. Rezak details them in her book. A sensitive approach to trade unions, as well as a constant effort to ensure dialogue and diversity, are viable routes to maintain the quality of the work environment of the academic institution and the educational product it generates.

However, the critical point is not found in a business model supported by the benefits of technology but on the essential ethic of offering opportunities and growth to professionals who are required in the educational field. Human treatment and a good balance of justice in the way in which educational places are managed can do more for the future of education than any application or technological service.

Sofía García-Bullé

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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0