Technology and the Future of the Food Workforce Commentary
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
JUNE 21, 2017 TECHNOLOGY AND THE FUTURE OF THE FOOD WORKFORCE COMMENTARY CRAIG WILLINGHAM CUNY URBAN FOOD POLICY INSTITUTE cunyurbanfoodpolicy.org Technology and the Future of the Food Workforce Commentary: Technology and the Future of the Food Workforce: An Exploration by Craig Willingham In many ways, life in the 21st century has been much the same as it was in the 20th century. People go to work, school and spend time with friends and family in mostly the same ways they did sixty years ago. Moreover, many of the same issues plague society -- income inequality, low-wage work, diet-related and chronic disease, and challenges related to racial and social justice. However, in the last 15 years, a fundamental new force has emerged. Technology has come to play an ever larger role in our public and private lives; modifying every aspect of our daily lives, from how we work, play, shop and learn to who knows what about our personal lives. Some wild speculation about future technologies, like flying cars, have not come to pass. Instead, we have seen a rise in technologies like cell phones, e-commerce platforms, and online social networks that integrate into our existing social, economic, and political structures in efforts to monetize, mediate, and accelerate everyday tasks related to work, home, and social life. This commentary explores how technology is changing how and what we eat and the means through which food is produced, distributed and sold. A particular focus is what these shifts, catalyzed by developments in technology, mean for the future of workers in the food sector. Sharing economy apps One prominent manifestation of how technology has changed our patterns of work is the rise in popularity of software applications or apps that provide new ways for consumers, workers, employers and tech companies to interact. Some of the most popular apps depend on a business model often referred to as a sharing economy or peer economy in which a third party technology is used to bring together customers and workers providing goods and services.1 Well known examples of these sorts of companies operate in a variety of industries and include Uber (transportation), AirBnB (hospitality), and TaskRabbit (general labor). In the food sector, these types of companies typically focus on food delivery, connecting workers that deliver food to consumers who order, often through arrangements with venues that sell the food. For instance, DoorDash is a company that offers restaurants access to an online sales platform which allows 55 West 125th Street, 6th Floor New York, NY 10027 (646) 364- 9602 [email protected] www.cunyurbanfoodpolicy.org Technology and the Future of the Food Workforce customers to use the company’s website or app to make purchases for delivery. It charges customers a fee for delivery and uses independent contractors called “dashers” to deliver the food.2 The benefit of services like this is that they allow restaurants to forgo the costs of maintaining an e-commerce site, which can be costly, and instead focus on producing food while still tapping into the demand for online ordering. Additionally, DoorDash affords restaurants the opportunity to contract-out food delivery, dispensing with the need for restaurants to recruit, supervise and pay deliverers. There are some benefits for workers as well. Because Dashers are contractors, workers who desire flexibility due to school or other commitments can take advantage of the flexibility that comes with on demand work. These sorts of jobs can also provide a great source of additional income for those looking for a flexible second job. For businesses, the sharing economy model represents an attractive new development to the worker/employer relationship. The delivery angle in particular has proved to be appealing for tech corporations and investors with companies like UberEats, Grubhub, DoorDash, and Seamless attracting millions of customers, thousands of contractors and billions of dollars in investment.3 But what does all of this mean for the workers delivering the food? Labor analysts have raised major concerns about the ambiguous status of those making the deliveries. First, nearly all of these services classify their delivery staff as contractors. This means the sorts of protections that come with traditional employment like, maximum and minimum hours, benefits, consistent pay rates, easy access to labor unions, and other job protections do not apply. These jobs end up being less secure and raise uncertainties unique to the sharing economy business model. These “disruptive” effects of the sharing economy model are exemplified by two traits found in tech companies that use this approach. One involves skirting the same regulations that govern their legacy industries and brick and mortar counterparts. The other consists of public statements to investors, policy makers and the press that evangelize the virtues of self-regulation and nimble employment structures, all in the service of increasing a company’s valuation.4 In 2016 delivery staff in Italy and the UK took to the streets to protest both their treatment and working conditions as contractors for delivery apps Foodora and UberEats.5,6 Fair wages were a particular point of contention in these two actions, an issue across the industry. Furthermore, in 2016 the grocery delivery service Instacart removed the tipping feature from its app and replaced it with a flat fee, which for some contractors meant lower overall income.7 After getting push-back from workers Instacart relented and replaced the original tip feature. However the new feature was buried so deep within the 8 app’s user interface that workers began distributing flyers to customers to explain how to tip. 55 West 125th Street, 6th Floor New York, NY 10027 (646) 364- 9602 [email protected] www.cunyurbanfoodpolicy.org Technology and the Future of the Food Workforce This sort of behavior towards workers is not exclusive to the tech industry. However, the issue is compounded by patterns of employment within the sharing economy model and by the ways in which the nature of peer-to-peer technology allows companies to argue that they themselves are only responsible for the tech, not the outcomes of it use. For instance, if there are changes made to an app, like those reflected in the Instacart example, that alters the user’s experience in a way that negatively impacts the workers who use it, the discussion, both before and after changes are made, should be about what decisions support both the tech and the workers, not just the tech. Although, some change may be on the horizon. In April 2017, Dashers won a law suit against DoorDash for the way in which that company classifies its delivery staff. The court found that current designation was not suitable for capturing the role delivery workers play in the company. As part of the settlement, DoorDash has agreed to make changes to how the contractors are classified and treated.9 Credit: McKinsey & Company The Changing Market for Food Delivery 55 West 125th Street, 6th Floor New York, NY 10027 (646) 364- 9602 [email protected] www.cunyurbanfoodpolicy.org Technology and the Future of the Food Workforce Automation For more than 150 years, automation has been a cause for celebration and concern. The cotton gin, steam engine, and the automobile all had detractors who saw them as grim harbingers of a jobless future.10 Contrary to predictions, advances in automation have mostly provided economic, productivity and social benefits to both workers and employers.11 Less clear, however, is who benefits and loses from these “advances” and who makes the decisions on how new technologies are deployed. What’s different now? The use of automated tools is rapidly moving into a new phase. In this era, the convergence of computerized artificial intelligence that can independently collect data, assess an environment, and make successful decisions toward a goal is being combined with advances in robotics to create autonomous work systems that can do everything from build a car to perform surgery.12 True, the jobs of food workers are notoriously hard to automate due to the tactile and situational awareness traits necessary for things like cooking food, harvesting crops, and interacting with customers. However, this is now changing and nowhere is this more apparent than in the fast food sector. For fast food companies, high level automation of food service tasks has been the Holy Grail for 13 decades. As labor groups around the country have organized under the “Fight for 15” campaign to 55 West 125th Street, 6th Floor New York, NY 10027 (646) 364- 9602 [email protected] www.cunyurbanfoodpolicy.org Technology and the Future of the Food Workforce demand higher wages for low-wage workers, this has taken on a new sense of urgency. Fast food corporations look to reduce the number of workers to offset projected increases in labor costs.14 Several pilot projects are paving the way for machines to begin replacing fast food workers. They represent innovations on two different fronts, preparing and selling food. First, three companies, Zume Pizza, Miso Robotics, and Momentum Machines are tackling the production side challenges. Each has developed a unique and highly-mechanized solution to address the needs of automated food production. Partly funded by the fast food chain Caliburger, Miso Robotics is set to launch its robotic kitchen assistant “Flippy” at 50 Caliburger locations by 2019, decreasing the number of workers necessary to produce meals.15 Similarly, Momentum machines is launching its flagship restaurant in the San Francisco bay area in 2017 with a signature robotics system that will churn out 400 hamburgers an hour.16 Lastly, Zume Pizza is looking to remove workers completely from the production side by using autonomous systems to make the pizza and specialized trucks to cook the pizza on its way to being delivered.17 A robot named “Flippy” will prepare burgers at a fast food chain by 2019.