Human beings might have all the intelligence at their disposal, but what they have alongside it is the tendency to make mistakes. This trait of ours has already showed up on the surface quite a few times, with each appearance practically forcing us to look for some sort of a defensive cover. To the world’s credit, we will find the most fitting answer for our conundrum once we bring dedicated regulatory bodies into the fold. The move was a game-changer, as having a well-defined authority across each and every area instantly concealed our many flaws, and consequentially, gave us a shot at all those possibilities that we couldn’t have imagined otherwise. However, the utopia that emerged from it was pretty short-lived, and if we talk about reasons, it was all technology’s fault. You see, the moment technology and its layered nature were allowed to take over the scene; they gave people an unprecedented chance to fulfil their ulterior motives at the expense of others. In case the stated dynamic wasn’t devastating enough, the whole runner started to materialize on such a massive scale that it expectantly overwhelmed our governing forces and sent them back to the drawing board. After spending a long time chalking up a new plan, though, the regulatory contingent finally seems ready to make a comeback. This has only turned more and more evident over the recent past, and FTC’s latest decision does a lot to prove the same.
The Federal Trade Commission has officially voted to investigate gig companies over concerns about potential wage-fixing. According to certain reports, the agency will look to reprimand companies that deliberately create an inaccurate assumption regarding a worker’s potential earnings or wrongfully use artificial intelligence to evaluate worker productivity.
“No matter how gig companies choose to classify them, gig workers are consumers entitled to protection under the laws we enforce,” said Samuel Levine, FTC director of consumer protection. “We are fully committed to coordinating our consumer protection and competition enforcement efforts within the FTC as well as working with other agencies across the government to ensure gig workers are treated fairly.”
This effort to better protect gig workers has been brewing for a while now. In July, FTC and National Labor Relations Board had formalized a collaboration to protect gig workers from unfair and deceptive practices carried out by ride-sharing and food delivery companies like Uber, Grubhub, DoorDash, Instacart, and more. Before the stated collaboration, we saw various states, most notably California, introducing special regulations such as AB5 that were geared towards making it harder for gig companies to classify their workers as independent contractors. However, if we have seen initiatives that favor workers, we have also witnessed gig companies trying to bankroll new bills that help their cause. Coming back to the move in question, though, FTC is expected to kickstart the relevant investigation soon, and assuming it finds any evidence of wage violations or any deceptive tactics, it could be looking to sue the gig companies for misclassifying workers, and abusing labor at large.