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Shipt's Pay Algorithm Squeezed Gig Workers. They Fought Back


Workers at delivery company Shipt "found that their paychecks had become...unpredictable," according to an article in IEEE Spectrum. "They were doing the same work they'd always done, yet their paychecks were often less than they expected. And they didn't know why...." The article notes that "Comp...

And they didn't know why...."The article notes that "Companies whose business models rely on gig workers have an interest in keeping their algorithms opaque." The tool's creator was attracted to the idea of helping a community "control and leverage their own data," and ultimately received more than 5,600 screenshots from over 200 workers. "[O]ur experiment served as an example for other gig workers who want to use data to organize, and it raised awareness about the downsides of algorithmic management.

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Shipt’s algorithm squeezed gig workers, who fought back