Platforms for Crowdsourced Labor Data

Description

Toby Baker:

"Regulation has been slow to react to the dramatic rise in the number of people relying on crowdwork to support their income. This has forced individuals to create their own digital solutions.

These solutions are powered by data. Crowdsourcing platforms are being used to democratise the possession of data and address the power imbalance between employer and employee." (https://digitalsocial.eu/blog/44/workertech-fighting-for-better-work-through-technology)

Examples

FairCrowdWork

Toby Baker:

"This platform that enables crowdworkers to share information about their working conditions and pay. This information is used to rank the various crowdworker platforms and help freelance workers value their skills and time more appropriately by comparing their wages with other doing similar work." (https://digitalsocial.eu/blog/44/workertech-fighting-for-better-work-through-technology)

Turkopticon

Toby Baker:

"This plugin works on the same principle as FairCrowdWork. However, rather than rating platforms, it only collects data from AMT workers. This enables Turkopticon to rate individual employers based on their communicativity, generosity, fairness and promptness.

A recent study found that half of ‘turkers’ earn less than the US minimum wage ($7.25 per hour), with some claiming that they earn $25 dollars on “a good day”. On a platform where employers are not obliged to pay a minimum wage and there are no meaningfulrepercussions for refusing to pay employees at all, Turkopticon is a powerful tool in the fight to redress this power imbalance." (https://digitalsocial.eu/blog/44/workertech-fighting-for-better-work-through-technology)