SHIPT’S ALGORITHM SQUEEZED GIG WORKERS. THEY FOUGHT BACK

 SHIPT’S ALGORITHM SQUEEZED GIG WORKERS. THEY FOUGHT BACK

IN EARLY 2020, gig workers for the app-based delivery company Shipt noticed something strange about their paychecks. The company, which had been acquired by Target in 2017 for US $550 million, offered same-day delivery from local stores. Those deliveries were made by Shipt workers, who shopped for the items and drove them to customers’ doorsteps. Business was booming at the start of the pandemic, as the COVID-19 lockdowns kept people in their homes, and yet workers found that their paychecks had become…unpredictable. They were doing the same work they’d always done, yet their paychecks were often less than they expected. And they didn’t know why.

Todays Thought

We grow tyrannical fighting tyranny. The most alarming spectacle today is not the spectacle of the atomic bomb in an unfederated world, it is the spectacle of the Americans beginning to accept the device of loyalty oaths and witchhunts, beginning to call anybody they don't like a Communist. 

-E.B. White, writer (11 Jul 1899-1985)

Todays Thought

I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything. 

-Nikola Tesla, electrical engineer and inventor (10 Jul 1856-1943)

Friday Mix

Electric Six - Gay Bar

Todays Thought

I wanted to live my life so that people would know unmistakably that I am alive, so that when I finally die people will know the difference for sure between my living and my death. 

-June Jordan, writer, teacher, and activist (9 Jul 1936-2002)

First try