labor

Qwick raises VC money to match gig workers with hospitality jobs • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 1, 2022Posted in Apps, gig work, hospitality, labor, startup, StartupsNo Comments

Leisure and hospitality workers are quitting at the highest rates of any industry. About 1 million left the workforce in November 2021 alone, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Why? Seasonality, low pay and monotonous work are among the reasons for the hospitality industry’s churn rate, as well as a perceived lack of career advancement. So what are hospitality businesses to do? Perhaps turn to services like Qwick, a startup that matches workers with hospitality gig contracts. Qwick today announced that it raised $40 million in a Series B financing round led by Tritium Partners, with participation by current investors Album VC, Kickstart, Desert Angels and Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. Jamie Baxter co-founded Qwick in 2017 with Chris Loeffler. Baxter was previously the segment tech director of risk and financial services at Willis Towers Watson, where he oversaw product and software development. With Qwick, Baxter sought to build a platform that connects service industry workers with food and beverage shifts in real time. Qwick uses a matching algorithm that takes into account factors like distance, the availability of “VIP” workers and supply to fill gigs for hospitality businesses, including stadiums, senior living facilities and corporate catering. “The hospitality industry has been plagued with reputations of low retention rates, low wages and poor management and working conditions for decades,” Baxter told ZebethMedia in an email interview. “Qwick aims to combat the issues of working in the industry and reshape what it means to work in hospitality by creating value for its professionals and offering them a livable wage.” To sign up for Qwick, workers have to complete a profile and watch a five-minute virtual orientation. Once they’re vetted, they receive notifications for open shifts. “Qwick requires incoming professionals to go through an orientation including a one-to-one interview,” Baxter said. “Before being granted access to the platform, all Qwick professionals have been certified and vetted for experience, professionalism and commitment to service.” Baxter also says that Qwick utilizes a two-way, five-star rating system to “ensure continued quality and reliability between professionals and businesses,” although it bears noting that similar ratings systems on gig marketplaces have been found to exacerbate biases against minority workers, Booking gigs through Qwick’s mobile app. Image Credits: Qwick Qwick is akin to startups like Stint, Flexy, Indeed Flex, Gig, Limber and Baristas on Tap, which provide short-term workers to businesses across a number of industries. Advocates for the platforms say that they’re making hospitality into a more financially viable profession by increasing job flexibility. But a recent Eater piece found that some workers on hospitality gig startups take home around the local minimum wage and might be forced to make lengthy unpaid commutes. Critics allege that the platforms could leave businesses with less budget for recruitment and training, encouraging them to replace full-time positions with temporary work. Some hospitality employers have signaled they’re willing to embrace temp workers potentially at the expense of salaried employees. In 2017 and 2018, Marriott and Hilton joined with Airbnb and the TechNet coalition (which includes Uber, Lyft and Taskrabbit) to lobby for a federal bill that would classify anyone who finds work through an online platform as an independent contractor. Baxter pushes back against the notion that Qwick is a force for ill, arguing it provides workers with the “freedom” to work on their schedules. “Thousands of business partners across the U.S. rely on Qwick to end understaffing … [We] only partner with reputable businesses known to treat their staff well, and give professionals the agency to work where and when they want,” Baxter said. “Hundreds of thousands of industry professionals have downloaded our app and signed up to work shifts through Qwick.” Qwick workers are paid an average of $9 above minimum wage in the cities where they work, Baxter added. He also noted that Qwick allows businesses to hire gig workers for traditional off-platform employment at no extra cost, unlike some gig work platforms that impose recruitment and hiring fees. In any case, the demand for Qwick’s service seems very robust on the employer side. After a rough patch during the pandemic — Qwick was forced to lay off 70% of the team, and Baxter stopped taking a salary — business has more than recovered, with revenue having grown an astounding 10,000% over the past three years, according to Baxter. And for better or worse, the gig economy shows no signs of contracting. The Pew Research Center reports that 16% of Americans have completed a job via an online gig platform. And Mastercard predicts that the number of global gig workers will rise to 78 million in 2023, up from 43 million in 2018. Qwick is actively working with over 7,000 businesses across 23 metro areas, and the platform has facilitated over 500,000 shifts so far, Baxter added. Qwick’s investors, for one, appear to be confident in Qwick’s long-term trajectory, whether or not it results in the best outcome for workers. In an emailed statement, Tritium Partners managing partner David Lack said: “Qwick’s impressive growth and history achieving success through its innovative hospitality solution, even through an especially challenging few years for the industry, indicate that the company has truly changed the way people work.” To date, Arizona-based Qwick has raised $69.1 million in capital. The company has a staff of just over 270, which Baxter says will expand to around 300 before the end of the year.

New Zealand Uber drivers win case declaring them employees • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 25, 2022Posted in Apps, gig economy, labor, New Zealand, Transportation, UberNo Comments

A group of Uber drivers in New Zealand won a landmark case Tuesday against the ride-hail company which will force Uber to treat them as employees, rather than independent contractors. New Zealand’s employment court decision only applies to four drivers who were part of a class action lawsuit filed last July, but the ruling may have wider implications for drivers across the country keen on qualifying for worker rights and protections. The move in New Zealand comes just a couple of weeks after the U.S. Department of Labor proposed widespread changes to how gig workers should be classified. Specifically, the proposed ruling seeks to classify gig workers as employees if they are economically dependent on the company for which they work. The formal decision in New Zealand was made in respect to the individual drivers in the case. The court doesn’t have jurisdiction to make broader declarations of employment status for all Uber drivers, according to chief employment court judge Christina Inglis. That means all other Uber drivers don’t immediately become employees; however, Inglis did say the decision “may well have broader impact” because of the “apparent uniformity in the way in which the companies operate, and the framework under which drivers are engaged.” In the ruling, the Employment Court said that even though a worker’s contract might define them as an independent contractor, that definition depends more on the “substance of the relationship and how it operated in practice.” “The Court accepted that some of the usual indicators of a traditional employment relationship were missing,” reads the ruling. “However, it was found that significant control was exerted on drivers in other ways, including via incentive schemes that reward consistency and quality and withdrawal of rewards for breaches of Uber’s Guidelines or for slips in quality levels, measured by user ratings.” The court found that Uber had sole discretion to control prices, service requirements, guidelines, terms and conditions, marketing, relationships with riders and more. “Uber was able to exercise significant control because of the subordinate position each of the plaintiff drivers was in and which its operating model was designed to facilitate and did facilitate,” according to the ruling. Two unions, First Union and E tū, took up the case last year on behalf of more than 20 drivers. Their goal was to override a legal precedent set in the Employment Court in 2020 that ruled a driver was not an employee. Labor rights activists argued there, as in the U.S. and everywhere else, that because an Uber driver’s rate is set by Uber, the company controls wages, which puts it in employer territory. At the time, the judge ruled that the driver actually had control over their wages because they could be paid less or improve the profitability of their business through adopting cheaper business costs. Tuesday’s ruling will grant the drivers in the case sick leave, holiday pay, minimum wage, guaranteed hours, KiwiSaver contributions, the right to challenge an unfair dismissal and the right to unionize, according to New Zealand’s labor laws. First Union is now accepting Uber drivers to join as members for a discounted fee of $3.05 per week and would move to initiate collective bargaining. The union says Uber drivers may be owed backpay for lost wages, holiday pay and other entitlements. “This is a landmark legal decision not just for Aotearoa but also internationally,” said Anita Rosentreter, First Union strategic project coordinator, in a statement. Uber did not respond in time to ZebethMedia for a comment, but a spokesperson for the company told The Guardian that the company would be appealing the decision, and that it was “too soon to speculate” how the court ruling would affect the company’s operations in New Zealand more broadly. The decision in New Zealand is the latest in a string of international cases where workers have fought for employment rights from gig economy companies. Last December, the U.K. High Court dealt a massive blow to Uber by declaring the business was unlawful and by classifying gig workers as “workers,” a new classification that allows for the flexibility of independent contract work and the rights of employee status. Last year, an analysis from the International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network, a membership organization of trade union and workers’ rights lawyers, showed gig companies like Uber and Deliveroo had faced at least 40 major legal challenges in 20 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, South Korea and across Europe.

An Apple Store in Oklahoma City votes to unionize • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 15, 2022Posted in Apple, Apps, labor, unionizationNo Comments

A majority of retail workers at the Apple Store at Penn Square in Oklahoma City have voted to unionize. The second Apple Store to win union representation in the U.S., the workers voted 56-32 in favor of forming a union, and will be represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA). Per National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rules, Apple has five business days to file an objection to the election. If not, the company must now recognize the union and take part in the collective bargaining process, which allows the workers to negotiate their contracts. Before the union election, the CWA filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB, accusing Apple of illegally surveilling, threatening and questioning workers at the Oklahoma City store. The complaint is currently under investigation. “Like Starbucks, Amazon, and other corporations, Apple execs have spent months violating labor law and intimidating their workforce. Workers are seeing these tactics for what they are — desperate attempts to prevent them from having a real say in their working conditions. Money is no match for workers who are ready to claim their power,” said CWA Secretary-Treasurer Sara Steffens in an emailed statement. “Apple workers are determined to organize for better wages and dignity on the job. Despite Apple’s illegal and aggressive anti-union campaign, Apple retail workers across the country will continue to organize, especially after this momentous victory. The Penn Square Apple retail workers are an amazing addition to our growing labor movement, and we are thrilled to welcome them as CWA members.” In a statement to the New York Times, an Apple spokesperson said: “We believe the open, direct and collaborative relationship we have with our valued team members is the best way to provide an excellent experience for our customers, and for our teams.” In June, an Apple Store in Towson, Maryland became the first of the tech giant’s U.S. retail locations to win union recognition. Leading up to that vote, the trillion-dollar company’s vice president of people and retail Deirdre O’Brien sent a video to 58,000 retail staff warning them about the perceived drawbacks of unionizing. O’Brien reiterated anti-union talking points, stating that it would be more difficult to enact change in stores with a union standing between Apple and employees — but some workers don’t think that meaningful change is possible without having a formally recognized bargaining unit. Now, as Apple rolls out more educational perks to its retail workers, the company says that the unionized store in Maryland will have to negotiate for the benefits. This same withholding of benefits has occurred at unionizing Starbucks locations, who employ the same anti-union law firm as Apple, Littler Mendelson. In the case of Starbucks, the NLRB found merit in the complaint that this behavior was a violation of U.S. labor law. The video game company Activision Blizzard also attempted to withhold raises from employees who were in the midst of unionizing, arguing that the company was following labor laws that prohibit employers from changing compensation in the midst of elections. But in that case, the NLRB also found merit in the union’s complaint.