Platform Cooperativism Resource Library

Summary

Sabine Kock at Who Owns the World Conference, convened by the Platform Cooperativism Consortium at The New School in November 2019. She is a speaker for Town Hall 2 – Labor Power for the Platform Economy Now! Digital Labor Is Not Free panel discussion.

About This Town Hall: The world of work is not working for too many people. Labor Law in many countries including the United States is broken. That’s why we ask: What are innovative forms of associational power for workers in the gig economy? Can we re-imagine and rebuild the gig economy in a fundamentally fairer way? How important a role does ownership – and Employee Stock Ownership Plans in particular- play in creating leverage for platform workers? How aware are workers of the ownership option? Do cooperatives emerge when unions fail, or do unions have an essential role to play in co-op development? How much hope do we place in the enforcement of AB5, a law passed by the California State Senate requiring platforms such as Uber and Lyft to treat their drivers as employees? How can technology help to link up, organize, and empower geographically dispersed workers?

Dr. Sabine Kock is founder and manager of the smart coop, Austria. As a cultural researcher, she works on new solutions for the future of work and social security. She is also a philosopher who focuses on the research fields of aesthetics, discourse of remembrance, gender & diversity.

Added April 17, 2020