Today The Los Angeles Times published a story on the gig economy and the 2016 presidential election, noting attempts by Republican candidates to rally behind gig economy firms “as prime examples of free-market entrepreneurship and workplace deregulation” while Democrats struggle to “avoid appearing resistant to the popular new ventures while highlighting their potential negative effect on workers’ pay and benefits.”  OnLabor Co-Founder Professor Benjamin Sachs was quoted about the implications of the debate for labor policy:

“Layered on top of all of this is the important question: What’s at stake here?” said Benjamin Sachs, a professor of labor and industry at Harvard Law School.  “Are the forms of protection and social welfare that we’ve provided since 1935 — are people going to just lose all of that because we have technological change? … How do we make sure that workers share in the sharing economy?”

OnLabor continues to follow developments in the gig economy and the status of gig economy workers.