skip to main content
10.1145/3678884.3681829acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagescscwConference Proceedingsconference-collections
extended-abstract

Worker Data Collectives as a means to Improve Accountability, Combat Surveillance and Reduce Inequalities

Published: 13 November 2024 Publication History

Abstract

Platform-based laborers face unprecedented challenges and working conditions that result from algorithmic opacity, insufficient data transparency, and unclear policies and regulations. The CSCW and HCI communities increasingly turn to worker data collectives as a means to advance related policy and regulation, hold platforms accountable for data transparency/disclosure, and empower the collective worker voice. However, fundamental questions remain for designing, governing and sustaining such data infrastructures. In this workshop, we leverage frameworks such as data feminism to design sustainable and power-aware data collectives to tackle challenges present in online labor platforms (e.g., ridesharing, freelancing, crowdwork, carework). While data collectives aim to support worker collectives and complement relevant policy initiatives, the goal of this workshop is to encourage their designers to consider topics of governance, privacy, trust, and transparency. In this one-day session, we convene research and advocacy community members to reflect on critical platform work issues, as well as to collaborate on codesigning data collectives that ethically and equitably address these concerns by supporting working collectivism and informing policy development.

References

[1]
Irsanti Widuri Asih, Heru Nugroho, and Budiawan Budiawan. 2022. Hegemonic dialectics between power and resistance in the Indonesian sharing economy: Study of Gojek. (2022). https://doi.org/10.21831/informasi.v52i1.49348
[2]
Uttam Bajwa, Denise Gastaldo, Erica Di Ruggiero, and Lilian Knorr. 2018. The health of workers in the global gig economy. Global. Health 14, 1 (Dec. 2018), 124. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-018-0444--8
[3]
Kirstie Ball et al. 2021. Electronic monitoring and surveillance in the workplace. European Commission Joint Research Centre (2021). https://doi.org/10.2760/5137
[4]
Garfield Benjamin. 2021. What we do with data: a performative critique of data collection. Internet Policy Review (2021). https://doi.org/10.14763/2021.4.1588
[5]
Ashley Boone, Carl Disalvo, and Christopher A Le Dantec. [n. d.]. Data Practice for a Politics of Care: Food Assistance as a Site of Careful Data Work. ACM, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3580831
[6]
Elizabeth A Brown. 2021. The FemTech paradox: How workplace monitoring threatens womens equity. Jurimetrics 61, 3 (2021), 289-- 329. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/femtech-paradox-howworkplace-monitoring/docview/2568314630/se-2
[7]
Dana Calacci. 2022. Organizing in the End of Employment: Information Sharing, Data Stewardship, and Digital Workerism. In 1st Annual Meeting of the Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work (CHIWORK '22). https://doi.org/10. 1145/3533406.3533424
[8]
Dana Calacci and Alex Pentland. 2022. Bargaining with the Black-Box: Designing and Deploying Worker-Centric Tools to Audit Algorithmic Management. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 6, CSCW2, Article 428 (nov 2022), 24 pages. https: //doi.org/10.1145/3570601
[9]
Dana Calacci and Jake Stein. 2023. From access to understanding: Collective data governance for workers. European Labour Law Journal 14, 2 (2023), 253--282. https://doi.org/10.1177/20319525231167981
[10]
Ruth Berins Collier, Veena Dubal, and Christopher Carter. 2017. Labor platforms and gig work: the failure to regulate. (2017). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3039742
[11]
W Alec Cram, Martin Wiener, Monideepa Tarafdar, and Alexander Benlian. 2022. Examining the impact of algorithmic control on Uber drivers? technostress. Journal of management information systems 39, 2 (2022), 426--453. https://doi. org/10.1080/07421222.2022.2063556
[12]
Shiva Darian, Aarjav Chauhan, Ricky Marton, Janet Ruppert, Kathleen Anderson, Ryan Clune, Madeline Cupchak, Max Gannett, Joel Holton, Elizabeth Kamas, Jason Kibozi-Yocka, Devin Mauro-Gallegos, Simon Naylor, Meghan OMalley, Mehul Patel, Jack Sandberg, Troy Siegler, Ryan Tate, Abigil Temtim, Samantha Whaley, and Amy Voida. 2023. Enacting Data Feminism in Advocacy Data Work. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 7, CSCW1, Article 47 (apr 2023), 28 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3579480
[13]
Namita Datta, Chen Rong, Sunamika Singh, Clara Stinshoff, Nadina Iacob, Natnael Simachew Nigatu, Mpumelelo Nxumalo, and Luka Klimaviciute. 2006. Working Without Borders: The Promise and Peril of Online Gig Work. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/jobsanddevelopment/publication/ online-gig-work-enabled-by-digital-platforms
[14]
Valerio De Stefano. 2018. The gig economy and labour regulation: an international and comparative approach. Law Journal of Social and Labor Relations 4 (2018), 68. Issue 2. https://doi.org/10.26843/mestradodireito.v4i2.158
[15]
Catherine DIgnazio, Isadora Cruxên, Helena Suárez Val, Angeles Martinez Cuba, Mariel García-Montes, Silvana Fumega, Harini Suresh, and Wonyoung So. [n. d.]. Feminicide and counterdata production: Activist efforts to monitor and challenge gender-related violence. ([n. d.]). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2022.100530
[16]
Catherine Dignazio and Lauren F Klein. 2023. Data feminism. MIT press.
[17]
Kimberly Do, Maya De Los Santos, Michael Muller, and Saiph Savage. 2024. Designing Sousveillance Tools for Gig Workers. In 2023 CHI (CHI '24). ACM, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642614
[18]
Claude Draude, Gerrit Hornung, and Goda Klumbyte. 2022. Mapping data justice as a multidimensional concept through feminist and legal perspectives. In New Perspectives in Critical Data Studies: The Ambivalences of Data Power. https: //doi.org/10.1007/978--3-030--96180-0_9
[19]
Mark Graham and Jamie Woodcock. 2018. Towards a fairer platform economy: introducing the Fairwork Foundation. Alternate Routes 29 (2018). https:// alternateroutes.ca/index.php/ar/article/view/22455
[20]
Mary L Gray and Siddharth Suri. 2019. Ghost work: How to stop Silicon Valley from building a new global underclass. Eamon Dolan Books.
[21]
Adrian John Hawley. 2018. Regulating labour platforms, the data deficit. European Journal of Government and Economics 7, 1 (2018), 5--23. https://doi.org/10.17979/ ejge.2018.7.1.4330%0A
[22]
Rie Helene (Lindy) Hernandez, Qiurong Song, Yubo Kou, and Xinning Gui. 2024. "At the end of the day, I am accountable": Gig Workers Self-Tracking for MultiDimensional Accountability Management. In CHI (CHI '24). ACM. https://doi. org/10.1145/3613904.3642151
[23]
Kelle Howson, Funda Ustek-Spilda, Rafael Grohmann, Nancy Salem, Rodrigo Carelli, Daniel Abs, Julice Salvagni, Mark Graham, Maria Belen Balbornoz, Henry Chavez, et al. 2020. Just because you dont see your boss, doesnt mean you dont have a boss: Covid-19 and Gig Worker Strikes across Latin America. International Union Rights 27, 3 (2020), 20--28. https://doi.org/10.1353/iur.2020.a838172
[24]
Jane Hsieh, Miranda Karger, Lucas Zagal, and Haiyi Zhu. 2023. Co-Designing Alternatives for the Future of Gig Worker Well-Being: Navigating Multi-Stakeholder Incentives and Preferences (DIS '23). https://doi.org/10.1145/3563657.3595982
[25]
Jane Hsieh, Angie Zhang, Mialy Rasetarinera, Erik Chou, Daniel Ngo, Jason Carpenter, Karen Lightman, Min Kyung Lee, and Haiyi Zhu. 2024. Supporting Gig Worker Needs and Advancing Policy Through Worker-Centered Data-Sharing. CSCW 25 (2024). In submission.
[26]
Eliscia Kinder, Mohammad Hossein Jarrahi, and Will Sutherland. 2019. Gig Platforms, Tensions, Alliances and Ecosystems: An Actor-Network Perspective. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 3, CSCW, Article 212 (nov 2019), 26 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3359314
[27]
Elizaveta Kravchenko. 2023. The ethics of care and participatory design: a situated exploration. Ph. D. Dissertation. The University of Texas at Austin. https://doi.org/10.26153/tsw/48077
[28]
Rosario Maria Lauren and CR Christi Anandan. 2024. Exploring the Challenges and Uncertainties faced by Gig Workers. Journal of Academia and Industrial Research (JAIR) 12, 2 (2024), 24--30. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017018785616
[29]
Alexandra Mateescu and A Nguyen. 2019. Explainer. Algorithmic management in the workplace 6 (2019), 1--15. https://datasociety.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/ 02/DS_Algorithmic_Management_Explainer.pdf
[30]
A Mateescu and A Nguyen. 2019. Explainer: Workplace Monitoring & Surveillance. https://datasociety.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/DS_Workplace_ Monitoring_Surveillance_Explainer.pdf
[31]
Joy Ming, Dana Gong, Chit Sum Eunice Ngai, Madeline Sterling, Aditya Vashistha, and Nicola Dell. 2024. Wage Theft and Technology in the Home Care Context. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 8, CSCW1, Article 151 (apr 2024), 30 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3637428
[32]
Will Orr, Kathryn Henne, Ashlin Lee, Jenna Imad Harb, and Franz Carneiro Alphonso. 2023. Necrocapitalism in the gig economy: The case of platform food couriers in Australia. Antipode (2023). https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12877
[33]
Christina Purcell and Paul Brook. 2022. At least Im my own boss! Explaining consent, coercion and resistance in platform work. Work, Employment and Society 36, 3 (2022), 391--406. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017020952661
[34]
Joanna Redden and Jessica Brand. 2017. Data harm record. Data Justice Lab (2017). https://datajusticelab.org/data-harm-record/
[35]
Shruti Sannon, Billie Sun, and Dan Cosley. 2022. Privacy, Surveillance, and Power in the Gig Economy. In 2022 CHI (New Orleans, LA, USA) (CHI '22). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 619, 15 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3502083
[36]
Jake M L Stein, Vidminas Vizgirda, Max Van Kleek, Reuben Binns, Jun Zhao, Rui Zhao, Naman Goel, George Chalhoub, Wael S Albayaydh, and Nigel Shadbolt. 2023. You are you and the app. Theres nobody else.: Building Worker-Designed Data Institutions within Platform Hegemony. In 2023 CHI (CHI '23). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 281, 26 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581114
[37]
Andrew Stewart and Jim Stanford. 2017. Regulating work in the gig economy: What are the options? The Economic and Labour Relations Review 28, 3 (2017), 420--437. https://doi.org/10.1177/1035304617722461
[38]
Nicholas Vincent, Brent Hecht, and Shilad Sen. 2019. Data Strikes: Evaluating the Effectiveness of a New Form of Collective Action Against Technology Companies. In The World Wide Web Conference (San Francisco, CA, USA) (WWW '19). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1931--1943. https://doi.org/10.1145/3308558.3313742
[39]
Nicholas Vincent, Hanlin Li, Nicole Tilly, Stevie Chancellor, and Brent Hecht. 2021. Data Leverage: A Framework for Empowering the Public in its Relationship with Technology Companies. 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (2021), 215--227. https://doi.org/10.1145/3442188.3445885
[40]
Alex J Wood, Mark Graham, Vili Lehdonvirta, and Isis Hjorth. 2019. Good Gig, Bad Gig: Autonomy and Algorithmic Control in the Global Gig Economy. Work, Employment and Society (2019). https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017018785616
[41]
Alex J Wood, Mark Graham, Vili Lehdonvirta, and Isis Hjorth. 2019. Networked but commodified: The (dis) embeddedness of digital labour in the gig economy. Sociology 53, 5 (2019), 931--950. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038519828
[42]
Zheng Yao, Silas Weden, Lea Emerlyn, Haiyi Zhu, and Robert E. Kraut. 2021. Together But Alone: Atomization and Peer Support among Gig Workers. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 5, CSCW2, Article 391 (oct 2021), 29 pages. https: //doi.org/10.1145/3479535
[43]
Angie Zhang, Alexander Boltz, Jonathan Lynn, Chun-Wei Wang, and Min Kyung Lee. 2023. Stakeholder-Centered AI Design: Co-Designing Worker Tools with Gig Workers through Data Probes. In 2023 CHI (CHI '23). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 859, 19 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581354
[44]
Angie Zhang, Alexander Boltz, Chun Wei Wang, and Min Kyung Lee. 2022. Algorithmic Management Reimagined For Workers and By Workers: Centering Worker Well-Being in Gig Work. In 2022 CHI (New Orleans, LA, USA) (CHI '22). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 14, 20 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102. 3501866
[45]
Jonathan Zong and J. Nathan Matias. 2024. Data Refusal from Below: A Framework for Understanding, Evaluating, and Envisioning Refusal as Design. ACM J. Responsib. Comput. 1, 1, Article 10 (mar 2024), 23 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3630107

Index Terms

  1. Worker Data Collectives as a means to Improve Accountability, Combat Surveillance and Reduce Inequalities

      Recommendations

      Comments

      Information & Contributors

      Information

      Published In

      cover image ACM Conferences
      CSCW Companion '24: Companion Publication of the 2024 Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
      November 2024
      755 pages
      ISBN:9798400711145
      DOI:10.1145/3678884
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

      Sponsors

      Publisher

      Association for Computing Machinery

      New York, NY, United States

      Publication History

      Published: 13 November 2024

      Check for updates

      Author Tags

      1. advocacy
      2. data
      3. platform work
      4. policymaking

      Qualifiers

      • Extended-abstract

      Funding Sources

      Conference

      CSCW '24
      Sponsor:

      Acceptance Rates

      Overall Acceptance Rate 2,235 of 8,521 submissions, 26%

      Upcoming Conference

      CSCW '25

      Contributors

      Other Metrics

      Bibliometrics & Citations

      Bibliometrics

      Article Metrics

      • 0
        Total Citations
      • 81
        Total Downloads
      • Downloads (Last 12 months)81
      • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)12
      Reflects downloads up to 10 Feb 2025

      Other Metrics

      Citations

      View Options

      Login options

      View options

      PDF

      View or Download as a PDF file.

      PDF

      eReader

      View online with eReader.

      eReader

      Figures

      Tables

      Media

      Share

      Share

      Share this Publication link

      Share on social media