[All] a refreshing analysis of Uber.

[Eleanor Grant]

Thanks Greg and Lori.

Have you all heard this segment about Uber that aired on CBC radio's The
180 in January?  Host Jim Brown interviews Paul Havershrewd of CBC's
business desk.  Very revealing research by Havershrewd - apx 9 minutes:

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/popup/audio/listen.html?autoPlay=true&clipIds=&mediaIds=2682492387&contentarea=radio&subsection1=radio1&subsection2=currentaffairs&subsection3=the_180&contenttype=audio&title=2016/01/24/1.3414584-principled-confrontation-the-uber-playbook-&contentid=1.3414584

Eleanor
On 7 Apr 2016 09:44, "Gregory C. Michalenko" <gcmichalenko at uwaterloo.ca>
wrote:

> At last someone is raising the really important issues about Uber.  Read
> the abstract.
> -Greg Michalenko
> ------------------------------
> *From:* env-faculty-bounces at lists.uwaterloo.ca [
> env-faculty-bounces at lists.uwaterloo.ca] on behalf of Heather Dorken [
> hdorken at uwaterloo.ca]
> *Sent:* Thursday, April 07, 2016 9:11 AM
> *To:* env-faculty at lists.uwaterloo.ca
> *Subject:* [env-faculty] Revised - Geography and Environment Faculty
> Search - Daniel Cockayne
>
>
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
>
>
> Please join us for a research seminar with Daniel Cockayne, who is
> interviewing for an Assistant Professor position in GEM. Daniel expects to
> defend his PhD in Geography at the University of Kentucky this coming June.
> Daniel’s CV can be viewed in Heather Dorken’s office (EV1-115). The seminar
> will be held from 10:00-11:30 in EV1-221 on Friday, April 15. We will
> provide coffee and cookies.
>
>
>
> “Does Uber own the cars now?” The normalization of insecure work in San
> Francisco’s digital media sector
>
>
>
> Abstract
>
> In this presentation I argue that work in San Francisco’s digital media
> sector is structured by both the short termism of financial technologies
> such as venture capital that make demands of exponential growth and fast
> returns on investment and the intense personal commitment individuals
> display to the their firm and product. Drawing on eighteen months of
> fieldwork in San Francisco with entrepreneurs, software developers, and
> other workers, I argue that equity-financed small businesses in this sector
> reproduce and romanticize insecure and uncertain working conditions for
> themselves and others. Negative impacts of work are balanced against the
> perceived (if not real) benefits of working for small businesses, such as
> personal autonomy and control over one’s work, high status and respect, and
> the desire for glamorous working environments. Through interviews with
> workers, I analyze how individuals justify their own submission to un- or
> under-paid and stressful work, long working hours, and considerable
> economic risk. I also examine how entrepreneurs impose insecure working
> conditions on others. I use the example of the ‘on-demand’ or, as it is
> more colloquially known, sharing economy to demonstrate how labor is
> devalued through the consistent framing of this work as ‘social’ rather
> than ‘economic,’ the imposition of punitive and disciplinary peer-review
> systems, and the prevalent legal classification of workers as contractors
> rather than employees in the U.S. context. I frame my findings within
> cultural and feminist economic geography, the geographies of work and
> labor, and critical studies of technology in geography to argue that the
> workplace is a primary site not only for the reproduction of particular
> systems of economic accumulation, but also the communication of power
> relations that reproduce hegemonic standards of work, and normative models
> of behavior.
>
>
>
>
>
> Hope to see you there,
>
> Johanna
>
>
>
> Johanna Wandel
> Associate Professor
> Interim Chair, Geography and Environmental Management
> University of Waterloo, Waterloo ON N2L 3G1
>
> 519 – 888 – 4567 ext. 38669
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> All mailing list
> All at gren.ca
> http://gren.ca/mailman/listinfo/all_gren.ca
>
>
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