Chokepoint Capitalism by Rebecca Giblin & Cory Doctorow

Author:Rebecca Giblin & Cory Doctorow [Giblin, Rebecca & Doctorow, Cory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cordoc-Co LLC
Published: 2022-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

COLLECTIVE ACTION

In 2020 and 2021, some sixty thousand drivers, fifteen thousand couriers, and five thousand riders began arbitration against Uber, Postmates, and DoorDash. Arbitration is a kind of private court, but with arbitrators making decisions instead of judges. There are other differences too: the process and outcomes are hidden from public scrutiny, and there are usually caps on the amount that can be recovered and no right of appeal. Unlike a court, an arbitration doesn’t produce a precedent, so you can’t leverage the victory of someone like you who has already achieved a successful verdict. Two people with identical cases might get different outcomes, and since the whole thing is secret, they probably won’t even find out.

Workers use it because they have no choice: a growing number of companies compel their workforces to give up the right to have disputes heard in court as a condition of doing business. Usually, this works out well for big business. Jurisdictions like California require them to pay the costs, which can be around $60,000 per arbitration, but it’s proven that arbitrators tend to find in favor of the powerful corporations that pay their invoices.1 The fact that outcomes are so unfavorable to workers keeps the number of claims low.

But these drivers, couriers, and riders flipped the script. Realizing how their companies had trapped them, they organized to spring the trap in the other direction with a coordinated deluge of claims. At $60,000 apiece, DoorDash’s liability in arbitration fees alone would be $300 million—probably far more than they would have had to pay in any class action lawsuit. All three companies found themselves scrambling to get out of this disaster of their own making, ironically begging courts to rule that their workers’ mass arbitration claims should not be allowed. Uber ended up settling with most of its drivers for at least $146 million. Postmates and DoorDash were ordered to go ahead with thousands of individual arbitrations they can’t afford, putting their vulnerable, low-paid workers in a sudden position of power.

This jujitsu from some of America’s most disempowered workers inspired us to think about how creative workers might themselves take better advantage of their collective power to claim a greater share of the value they produce. If we think of collective action as a theory of change, what are the most promising levers that can be pulled, and to which fulcrums should they be applied?

One huge advantage of authors, musicians, screenwriters, and artists is that they are highly visible—collectively, and (the most famous of them at least) individually too. When they speak, the media reports. Starstruck members of Congress pay attention. Dedicated fans amplify their messages. Stock prices tremble. Change can be made—as when recording artists worked together to roll back a change the recording industry had snuck into law to steal away their rights. (Keep reading—we dig into that incredible story in the chapter that comes next!)

But while top creators use their political and media platforms to support any number of important causes

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