Philanthropy hasn’t traditionally been very prominent in the epic, centuries-long struggle between labor and capital. And most charitable funders haven’t done much to respond to the adverse effects of the digital revolution on the world of work — or to empower workers to organize for their rights. The Ford Foundation, a longtime labor movement funder, is one exception.
Backed by Ford, the India-based NGO IT for Change recently published a new report titled “The Future of Work We Seek: A Philanthropic Agenda for Workers and the Digital Economy,” which looks at the impacts of the digitalization of the economy on workers and their rights, particularly in the Global South.
“One of the things that we found was that technology is one of the key drivers that is shaping work more broadly… We’re seeing tech is changing things, currently,” said Ritse Erumi, a Future of Work(ers) program officer at Ford. “What we were finding was that the economy writ large was being digitized.”
These changes not only affect the actual work, Erumi told me, but also who manages workers on the job, how people are paid, how that pay is determined, and the kind of productivity measures that are used, among others. The unfortunate truth is that although the digital revolution promised to bring flexibility, mobility and greater access to workers around the globe, in reality, it has often exacerbated problems like job insecurity, surveillance, a gendered digital divide and a general erosion of workers’ rights.
“There is often a narrative that technology is good, and that it will drive economies, it will drive growth and whatnot,” Erumi said. “What this report kind of really helps us see is that it’s more complicated than that.”
A brave new world
In recent years, the digital economy has largely shifted to app- or platform-based technology. Think rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft, delivery apps like Postmates and Instacart, and rental apps like Airbnb. While one of the more alluring aspects of this work is the flexibility it provides, the report found that these platforms have also made work more precarious. For many, work has also become increasingly informal and workers thus face heightened insecurity, while a lack of regulatory policy and legal frameworks have opened the door for companies to take greater advantage of their workers.
One of the major changes the digital economy has brought about is that in many ways, algorithms are now managing workers. Rather than an actual person, applications and platforms now handle matters of hiring, payment and punishment. This, in turn, has shifted responsibility away from employers. From the report: “The normalization of control, opacity and lack of accountability in work arrangements through technological systems has left workers without a meaningful right to explanation or appeal.”
Worker surveillance has also reached dizzying new heights in the digital era. Surveillance has always existed in the workplace, but that surveillance has shifted from a foreman overseeing workers or a camera watching from above to far more advanced — and invasive — ways to monitor workers. Methods like keystroke monitoring, AI cameras, GPS systems and even biometric readings have created a kind of digital panopticon where workers toil under constant scrutiny. And that can drastically shift the balance of power in the workplace to the detriment of workers.
“Data has emerged as an important frontier of workers’ rights,” the IT for Change report found. “Workers are seeking to challenge digitized workplace surveillance and also in some cases attempting to leverage a better deal for themselves by asserting rights to the data they produce in the course of their labor.”
The report also found that the notion of digital technology as an equalizing force is “largely a myth.” Rather, the digital economy simply replicates — and can amplify — troubling labor dynamics that were already present.
For instance, the digitalization of the economy has done little to alter the inequitable relationship between the Global North and Global South. Just as many regions of the Global South, including Latin America and Africa, were already subject to “colonial patterns of resource extraction,” so, too, has this begun to take shape in a digitalized world, leading to a kind of digital colonization.
“A lot of the technologies, a lot of the platforms are developed in the West, but then deployed in those regions,” Erumi said. “In a lot of the Global South, we have kind of a regulatory vacuum, and so these companies are able to sort of go rampant and essentially build out technologies and platforms that really impinge on workers rights.”
Since big tech companies are so predominant, they are able to reap disproportionate benefits from the digital economy while shortchanging smaller economic actors, especially in the Global South. This, according to the report, has led to an “extractivist relation with poorer nations and making them tributaries of data and labor.”
In addition, issues of access hinder many workers from obtaining opportunities in the digital economy. According to the report, a gendered digital divide, especially in the Global South, has made it all the more difficult for women to take part in the digital economy.
What can philanthropy do?
Though the regulatory power to minimize and prevent exploitation in the digital economy mostly lies in the hands of governments, philanthropy can help make a difference. Abroad and in the U.S., that could involve building up the power of workers in civil society by backing labor movement groups, as well as finding ways to nudge government policy in workers’ favor.
According to the report, there are three key domains in which philanthropy can intervene, and thus play “a crucial role in mediating who gains and who loses” in a digitized global economy. These are: guaranteeing standards for decent work in the digital economy, renewing labor organizations and strengthening worker mobilization, and establishing data rights for workers to end unaccountable algorithmic management.
The report suggests a number of additional paths funders can take, like setting up rapid-response funds to challenge algorithmic discrimination, invasive surveillance, and incursions on privacy and other civil rights; fostering partnerships between worker-led organizations, tech communities and other experts to develop a more cooperative economic future; and building international coalitions to engage with policymakers and bolster advocacy efforts on these issues.
The report’s findings also include recommendations about what philanthropy can do not only to expand and protect workers’ rights in the digital economy, but to address the economic, social and political disparities that existed before.
Through its Future of Work(ers) program, the Ford Foundation has supported programs around the globe to ensure that workers have equal rights and labor protections, as well as a voice in shaping the policies and economic systems that affect their lives. Programs include the Southern Workers Opportunity Fund, supporting informal workers, and Ford’s recently announced participation in the multisector partnership M-POWER. On average, Ford moves about $37 million a year through its Future of Work(ers) program, which includes domestic, global and BUILD investments.
“What led to actually developing this [Future of Work(ers)] program has been a real recognition that if we want to tackle inequality — which is the broader vision of the foundation — we need to tackle economic inequality,” said José García, director of the Future of Work(ers) program. “And a central way to tackle economic inequality is to better ensure that workers are centered in our economy.”
For Erumi, this work is critical. “If we don’t really double down on trying to understand what it means to uphold workers’ rights, their ability to organize, to look at the design of tech to ensure that workers are reshaping these technologies, we will just be reinforcing historic forms of inequity.”