The " Gig " Economy !

When you order a pizza for home delivery, very likely the person who arrives with it at your door is wearing what appears to be a brand uniform and using branded equipment to keep the pizza hot, but the pizza shop will insist that he or she is not an employee but a " contractor "  supplying their services as a person running their own business.

When a person becomes an " employee " they gain benefits such as holiday pay and public holidays and the law covering dismissal is onerous. In many cases the distinction between a person operating as a contractor and an employee is hard to define but it results in less take home pay and the certainty of employment is tenuous.

A recent judgement by the Fair Work Commission has sent deep shock waves through the Gig economy which heavily relies on such contractors.  Almost a million Australians work on a freelance or project basis rather than having a permanent job.  The thinking that underpins their way of earning an income is now under challenge.

The Commissions decision concerned a former Foodora delivery rider who claimed unfair dismissal. It found that technology is creating new ways to exploit workers and that workplace laws have not kept pace with technology or technological change.  It determined that this dismissed rider was an employee and not an independent contractor.

This is a landmark decision that will fundamentally reshape work in the Gig economy and will reshape the rights of workers in that economy.  The impact of this decision will have far reaching implications.  Companies that rely on such contracting services have the right to be very worried.

There are huge numbers of workers in the Gig economy who continue to be faced with precarious employment and below award pay. This Gig work has spread to aged care, child care and disability care.  The Gig economy companies have tried to have the best of both worlds.  In particular, they haver created ways to rank workers, giving them the opportunities to work at better times depending on performance.  Uniforms and branded equipment contributed to worker status.

In the building industry, the number of sub-contractors is legendary.  The difference is that these are licensed tradespeople who supply their own equipment and work on a quoted fixed price basis to supply their services to individual building jobs.  Their price varies according to the work opportunities offering from time to time.  Often the specialised equipment they supply costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The people this Fair Work Commission applies to usually simply supply their bodies to fulfil their employers needs. Applying the term " contractor " will now need a new degree of objectivity to meet Fair Work guidelines !