The Innovation and Information Technology Foundation recently hosted a panel discussion concerning three possible paths to handle the antiquated labor law policies concerning the GIG economy. The following is a summary of that discussion as well as link to the video session and a link to below to the report that details the three suggestions – Adapt It, Fix It, or Suspend it:
Event Summary
The U.S. labor market has diversified considerably in recent decades, and more workers now fall somewhere between full-time employees of a single company and freelance contractors serving their own set of customers. Although Internet platforms like Uber and TaskRabbit still represent only a small fraction of this intermediate market, their rapid growth has shined a bright light on the shortcomings of current labor law.
Please join ITIF to discuss a new report arguing that the common law-based distinction between employees and independent contractor no longer serves workers or companies well and should be updated. A panel of experts will discuss failures of current labor law and three alternative paths to update it for the gig economy: first, adapt it by creating a new category of worker between full-time employee and independent contractor; second, fix it by tailoring each of the country’s major labor laws to achieve their specific goals; or, third, suspend it by temporarily exempting gig economy Internet platforms from ill-fitting labor laws.
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