I’m not sure which is worse – a Party that outright lies in its campaign platform or a Party that cloaks its real agenda in sympathetic-sounding policies for a group of people without power or political leverage.
The case in point is the Conservative’s platform planks on gig-workers – those workers who drive your Uber or Lyft or dash to your door with your meals.
The companies they work for consider them ‘independent contractors,’ a false categorization that lets Uber and Lyft and Door Dash and a dozen other corporations off the hook for paying overtime or benefits or paid sick leave or EI or CPP or very much of anything, including a living wage
Gig work is just a fancy name for precarious work, piece work, zero-contract hours, casual work and all the other ways a person’s labour can be exploited. Gig workers have been fighting for recognition as employees for a long time in order to secure what the rest of us take for granted.
Along come the Conservatives who say (on page 42 of their platform) they will oblige gig companies to set up a portable ‘Employee Savings Account’ into which gig economy companies will deposit the equivalent of CPP and EI premiums. Employees can withdraw that money anytime they need it. Sounds good, right? Gig companies finally being held to account and all that.
The problem is, as gig workers tell us, the money is in cash. It’s not part of the universal program of EI and CPP so it can too easily disappear, especially as gig workers often don’t even make minimum wage. It will set up a permanent underclass of worker who will find it harder to break out of the gig economy that exploits their labour. And it does nothing for the growing inequality that is plaguing our economic system now.
The answer, they correctly point out, is for gig companies to recognize they have employees and to provide the benefits the Canada Labour Code obliges them to.
The kicker here is that the policy is straight out of the Uber playbook. It was the kind of ‘solution’ Uber promoted in California during a referendum (Proposition 22) on whether gig workers were ‘independent contractors’ or not. Uber poured an impressive $220 million into that campaign and won.
So, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that a former Uber corporate lobbyist (Dan Mader) is Mr O’Toole’s Policy Director and the man who had the lead in developing the Conservative Party’s platform for this election. Mader was, until August of this year, lobbying the Ford government to implement the very same policy that is now in O’Toole’s platform.
I don’t know about you, but this is way too sly for me. And it raises the obvious question, what else is hidden beneath the Conservative Party’s platform?
David McLaren, Neyaashiinigmiing
References
Erin O’Toole’s plan for Gig Workers was ‘Carbon Copied’ from Uber’s corporate lobbyists. https://pressprogress.ca/erin-otooles-plan-for-gig-workers-was-carbon-copied-from-ubers-corporate-lobbyists/
Toronto Star confirms Uber lobbyist’s role in framing Tory platformhttps://www.thestar.com/politics/federal-election/2021/09/06/essential-workers-kept-canada-going-during-covid-19-whats-on-offer-for-them-in-the-federal-election.html
Goldblatt Law Partners’ deconstruction of ‘independent contractors’ and the proper classification of gig work https://goldblattpartners.com/unsolicited-blog/the-abcs-of-gig-work/
Uber pitches new provincial rules to keep gig workers as contractors — as workers’ resistance ramps up https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2021/04/28/uber-pitches-new-provincial-rules-to-keep-gig-workers-as-contractors-as-workers-resistance-ramps-up.html
Uber is lobbying Canadian provinces to rewrite labour laws and create a new ‘Underclass of Workers’ https://pressprogress.ca/uber-is-lobbying-canadian-provinces-to-rewrite-labour-laws-and-create-a-new-underclass-of-workers/
Research: After the Gig: How the Sharing Economy Got Hijacked and How to Win It Back (2021) https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520385672/after-the-gig
The Steven Harper vets behind O’Toole’s campaign https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal-election/2021/08/17/how-do-the-conservatives-hope-to-win-the-election-with-a-lot-of-money-and-a-little-help-from-overseas.html
