Manon McCollum - AMAZON'S TURKER CROWD HAS HAD ENOUGH

https://www.wired.com/story/amazons-turker-crowd-has-had-enough/

The article discussed Amazon's M-Turk Platform, in which part-time workers do online jobs that can't be done by computers. These workers are paid 25 cents, 5 cents, or even nothing, trying to gain a reputation for future jobs. The platform works on a ratings system, and the worker is basically invisible and unknown.

I think that this "sharing economy", and the ideas of doing tons of work for little pay is a modern form of exploitation. I think that, while the internet has certainly "re-invented" the workplace, I think that the millennial integration of work and life has caused serious problems for the workers caught up in the machine. Similar problems have been found in amazon packing facilities, with productivity and optimization trumping everything else.

These developments are very similar to the depersonalization and subjugation of workers in the 19th century market and, later, industrial revolutions. These workers, also known as "wage slaves", faced little pay and poor working conditions. Their lives didn't improve until they unionized and demanded their rights.

The plight of this modern online workforce is that they have no power to unionize. They are all "part time", and are flung all across the globe. In addition to outscoring millions of jobs overseas, corporations are using globalization and new technology to shortchange workers to increase profits.