A UK controversy about school leavers’ marks shows algorithms can get things wrong. To ensure algorithms are as fair as possible, how they work and the trade-offs involved must be made clear.
Disclosure statement
Alex Veen is part of a research team that received a University of Sydney Business School Industry Partnership grant. Uber Technologies is a Partner Organisation on this grant and provided a minority financial contribution to the project. He further receives funding from the Australian Research Council in the form a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) for his project entitled Algorithmic management and the future of work: lessons from the gig economy.
Caleb Goods is part of a research team that received a University of Sydney Business School Industry Partnership grant. Uber Technologies is a Partner Organisation on this grant and provided a minority financial contribution to the project.
“Working at an Amazon warehouse is no easy thing. The shifts are long. The pace is super-fast. You are constantly being watched and monitored. They seem to think you are just another machine.”
So testified Jennifer Bates before a US Senate Budget Committee hearing into income and wealth inequality on March 17. Less than a month later her co-workers at Amazon’s fulfilment centre in Bessemer, Alabama, voted 1,798 to 738 against allowing the Retail, Wholesale and Department Stores Union into their workplace to represent them.
That might seem a surprising outcome. But Bates’s testimony hinted at the odds of workers voting against the company’s wishes – which was heavily anti-union:
Menulog, Australia’s second-largest food ordering and delivery platform, has declared it will break with the standard “gig platform” business model and engage some of its couriers as employees, not independent contractors.
“We owe it to our couriers,” Menulog’s managing director Morten Belling told the Senate Select Committee inquiry into job security this week. The inquiry is investigating the scope of insecure or precarious employment in Australia.
The Transport Workers’ Union says Menulog’s move is a “watershed moment for the gig economy”. By committing to pay couriers a minimum wage and superannuation, it is going further than its competitors such as UberEats and Deliveroo.