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Supporting Gig Worker Needs and Advancing Policy Through Worker-Centered Data-Sharing

Jane Hsieh, Angie Zhang, Mialy Rasetarinera, Erik Chou, Daniel Ngo, Karen Lightman, Min Kyung Lee, Haiyi Zhu

TL;DR

This paper investigates how worker-centered data-sharing can advance policy for gig work by engaging policy-domain experts and gig workers in a two-stage study (expert interviews and worker co-design). It identifies three shared policy initiatives—equity, fair pay, and safety—and details sector-specific priorities, data needs, and governance considerations, including ownership and privacy. The findings yield design guidelines for data-sharing tools that align worker needs with policymaker priorities, while highlighting practical challenges such as data integrity, potential invisible labor, and power asymmetries. The work offers actionable insights to inform legislation and governance for a more thriving and equitable gig-work future, emphasizing multi-stakeholder collaboration and transparent data practices.

Abstract

The proliferating adoption of platform-based gig work increasingly raises concerns for worker conditions. Past studies documented how platforms leveraged design to exploit labor, withheld information to generate power asymmetries, and left workers alone to manage logistical overheads as well as social isolation. However, researchers also called attention to the potential of helping workers overcome such costs via worker-led datasharing, which can enable collective actions and mutual aid among workers, while offering advocates, lawmakers and regulatory bodies insights for improving work conditions. To understand stakeholders' desiderata for a data-sharing system (i.e. functionality and policy initiatives that it can serve), we interviewed 11 policy domain experts in the U.S. and conducted co-design workshops with 14 active gig workers across four domains. Our results outline policymakers' prioritized initiatives, information needs, and (mis)alignments with workers' concerns and desires around data collectives. We offer design recommendations for data-sharing systems that support worker needs while bringing us closer to legislation that promote more thriving and equitable gig work futures.

Supporting Gig Worker Needs and Advancing Policy Through Worker-Centered Data-Sharing

TL;DR

This paper investigates how worker-centered data-sharing can advance policy for gig work by engaging policy-domain experts and gig workers in a two-stage study (expert interviews and worker co-design). It identifies three shared policy initiatives—equity, fair pay, and safety—and details sector-specific priorities, data needs, and governance considerations, including ownership and privacy. The findings yield design guidelines for data-sharing tools that align worker needs with policymaker priorities, while highlighting practical challenges such as data integrity, potential invisible labor, and power asymmetries. The work offers actionable insights to inform legislation and governance for a more thriving and equitable gig-work future, emphasizing multi-stakeholder collaboration and transparent data practices.

Abstract

The proliferating adoption of platform-based gig work increasingly raises concerns for worker conditions. Past studies documented how platforms leveraged design to exploit labor, withheld information to generate power asymmetries, and left workers alone to manage logistical overheads as well as social isolation. However, researchers also called attention to the potential of helping workers overcome such costs via worker-led datasharing, which can enable collective actions and mutual aid among workers, while offering advocates, lawmakers and regulatory bodies insights for improving work conditions. To understand stakeholders' desiderata for a data-sharing system (i.e. functionality and policy initiatives that it can serve), we interviewed 11 policy domain experts in the U.S. and conducted co-design workshops with 14 active gig workers across four domains. Our results outline policymakers' prioritized initiatives, information needs, and (mis)alignments with workers' concerns and desires around data collectives. We offer design recommendations for data-sharing systems that support worker needs while bringing us closer to legislation that promote more thriving and equitable gig work futures.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 56 sections, 1 figure, 3 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. State of Unregulated Gig Work
  4. Countering Unjust Platform Practices: The Potential of Data
  5. Towards Data Collectives that Respect Needs & Workflows of Laborers Across Task Domains
  6. Methods
  7. Recruitment and Participants
  8. Stage 1: Interviewing Policy Domain Experts
  9. Stage 2: Co-designing with Gig Workers
  10. Protocol and Study Design
  11. Stage 1: Interview Protocol with Policy Domain Experts
  12. Stage 2: Study Design with Gig Workers
  13. Positionality
  14. Analysis
  15. Findings
  16. ...and 41 more sections

Figures (1)

  • Figure 1: Summary of Main Findings: Figure shows initiatives that policy domain experts and workers desired to support with data collected through a data-sharing system. Center of diagram demonstrates three shared initiatives between the stakeholder groups.