Uberworked and Underpaid

This book is about the rise of digital labor. Companies like Uber and Amazon Mechanical Turk promise autonomy, choice, and flexibility. One of network culture's toughest critics, Trebor Scholz chronicles the work of workers in the "sharing economy," and the free labor on sites like Facebook, to take these myths apart. In this rich, accessible, and provocative book, Scholz exposes the uncaring reality of contingent digital work, which is thriving at the expense of employment and worker rights. The book is meant to inspire readers to join the growing number of worker-owned "platform cooperatives," rethink unions, and build a better future of work. A call to action, loud and clear, Uberworked and Underpaid shows that it is time to stop wage theft and "crowd fleecing," rethink wealth distribution, and address the urgent question of how digital labor should be regulated and how workers from Berlin, Barcelona, Seattle, and São Paulo can act in solidarity to defend their rights.

Acknowledgments Introduction: Why Digital Labor Now? Chapter 1: Black Box Labor and the Creative Wrecking of Employment Chapter 2: Play at Work Chapter 3: Defining Digital Labor Chapter 4: Crowd Fleecing Chapter 5: On Motivations Conclusion i. Confronting the Legal Gray Zones of Digital Labor ii. On Tactical Refusal, Defection, and Withdrawal from Data Labor iii. Think Outside the Boss: Platform Cooperativism for the Sharing Economy Epilogue Notes Index