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Digital Dialogue: Transcontinental Gig Work: what to do about the next round in global exploitation

  • Zoom (Digital Dialogue)
  •  6th April 2023
     4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

📅 06 April 2023 | 🕟16:00-17:00 CEST | 💻 Online |

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The global division of labour in the industrial age is well known: The Global South provides raw materials and cheap labour in its sweatshops for multinational companies from the Global North to supply global markets.

The digital economy functions similarly: The Global South provides coltan and other raw materials as well as cheap online labour.

A reserve army of gig workers, both in the Global North and South, work as online contractors for the benefit of large companies mainly based in the Global North. Given its transnational nature, what kind of self-organisation, or regulation, does this new labour relationship require? Should it, yet again, privilege workers from the Global North over those from the Global South? Could opportunities for online work stem illegal south-north migration?

Traditionally, unions organise the workforce in a specific sector and country. While unions have not been very successful to organise the workforce of large digital companies, what could the role of other civil society actors be? Are ethical guidelines sufficient to protect gig workers or is there a need for enforceable laws that stretch across borders and continents?

The Panel

Sai Amulya Komarraju
Researcher at FemLab

Jane Muigai Kamphuis
Founder-Director of The Toolkit iSkills (TTI) Ltd

Nuno Boavida
Specialist working in the intersection of technology and labour. The researcher of CICS.NOVA at NOVA University of Lisbon and is the Deputy Director of its Observatory of Technology Assessment