Could Collective Bargaining be Uberized?

William looks at his half peanut butter sandwich. It’s all he can afford to eat. His wife, Wilma, a nurse, will be eating the other half later today at her lunch break. The only one in the family who eats a whole peanut butter sandwich is Willy Jr. And, sometimes, right before payday, even little Willy goes hungry.

William and Wilma work hard, yet they can’t seem to make ends meet. William picks at the blister on his hand. It has been bothering him all day, as he’s been making widgets for his company, Widgets R’ Us. William has sent out hundreds of resumes, all to jobs he’s highly qualified to do. But, none have panned out. He’s thinking about choking his neighbor Bob, who just yesterday was telling him, “If you don’t like your job, just find another.” Just find another! That’s not so easy. Like many workers, William has tried to find another, but jobs are scarce.

Meanwhile, Peter Pennipencher is riding in his limo to Widgets R’ Us. He is the CEO. His job is to pinch everyone—workers, customers, the government; it doesn’t matter to Peter, as long as his company makes profit. That’s the only thing he’s hired to do—make profit for investors. If he does that in the short term, he gets perks on top of his multimillion-dollar salary. Right now he’s reading about a company that produces widgets overseas. They produce them cheaply, and it has Peter thinking about moving production overseas.

William is thinking it would be wonderful to unionize. But, he’s scared. He’s met Peter, and he knows Peter is heartless. He wouldn’t hesitate firing anyone who even whispers the word, “union”. Plus, William has been misclassified as an independent contractor, and word has leaked out that independent contractors don’t have the right to form a union. There have even been rumors about severe legal actions that would be taken against them. Peter is behind all the rumors. A union ruins his whole scheme. Just imagine workers wanting decent pay, legal protection under the law, and benefits? It would cut into the company’s profits—and his stock options.

Peter is using every option at his command to “uberize” his workers. What he wants is a highly skilled, highly motivated, productive workforce; but, he doesn’t want to pay for it. He’ll use every trick in the book to cheat his workers out of pay and benefits. It’s what he’s paid to do! He uses all kinds of apps, computer models, and technological resources to coordinate his workers and eliminate the need for as many people as possible. It’s one of the reasons why his workers are so overworked.

But, let’s imagine for a moment that William and the other workers are able to unionize. The biggest barrier to that is fear. But, what if technology takes fear out of the equation? What if technology allows the workers to band together, but to do it anonymously? Without fear of retaliation, unionization might happen at the Widgets R’ Us factory, but workers are also afraid of outsourcing. But, what if the same technology that allows them to unionize, also allows them to coordinate with other workers in the factories overseas? What if it also allows them to coordinate with other workers in the same industry? All of a sudden, Peter’s power over his workers would fade. Right now, Peter’s workers are afraid of him? But, what if the tables turned? What if Peter was afraid of his workers?

Let’s imagine for a moment that a software developer comes up with an app called Unionize. It allows workers to anonymously sign up for an account and use a fake name on its online discussion board. It has to have an anonymous discussion board. Peter will eventually sign up for an account, and it’s important he sees how many of his worker want to band together, and what they really think of him and the company. It helps to increase the fear he experiences. It’s also good for Peter to know that his workers are coordinating their efforts with others in the industry, and the factories overseas. This increases his apprehension and his desires to appease his workers.

The app allows workers to pick their company, job title, and industry. As more workers sign up, it begins to build a database—of workers, companies, job titles, and industries. It also shows workers how many other similar workers are wanting to unionize to better themselves. It could be a powerful tool.

Imagine new features begin to be added to Unionize. It allows workers to chose whether they are classified as independent contractors or employees. It also has algorithms that estimate if workers were being misclassified, and if it is highly probably, the app immediately notifies the proper tax and labor departments. Now, more power is being given to workers.

Now, imagine the app includes categories of things such as wages, hours worked per week, paid sick days, paid vacation days, paid personal days, percentage of profit sharing, and cost of health insurance. The app could allow workers to choose what they felt were fair amounts for each of these categories. And, the app could include what the workers were actually receiving in each of these categories. Over time, the app would begin to give a picture of an industry. This information gives power to workers.

Now, imagine workers could supply estimates of how many workers were being employed by their employer. The app could track and make all this data available to users in real time. It could even provide algorithms that could estimate when a particular company has enough workers interested in either forming a union or trying to improve worker pay and/or conditions. And, since the app already has information about wages and benefits, it could provide suggestions as to worker demands. Such an app could also calculate currencies worldwide to the home currency of each user, so it could give a global overview of an industry.

Because such an app could coordinate the activities of workers around the world in a particular industry, it could be useful for coordinating worker strikes; both locally and globally. Workers would now have the power to force an industry to its knees, and bring management to the bargaining table! And, they could do it anonymously.

Of course, then comes the rub. Someone has to show up at the table. And, those workers would face possible retaliation. So, let’s give the app another feature. Imagine it allows workers to nominate third party arbitrators—people who would represent the workers, but not be attached to the industry. The app could also allow workers to reveal their identities if they would like to be representatives of a company’s workers or an industry.

If someone could only uberize collective bargaining, it would be a tremendous tool in raising income and benefits to workers worldwide. Unfortunately, I don’t have the skills to develop such an app. But, if you have the skills, please take my idea and run with it. We’re living in an era where our standard of living is plummeting, and the only reason I can see for it is so Peter can live even larger than he’s already living. We need the power to return to the people.