Gig Workers with Disabilities: Opportunities, Challenges, and Regulatory Response
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Gig Workers with Disabilities: Opportunities, Challenges, and Regulatory Response Paul Harpur1 · Peter Blanck2 Accepted: 21 October 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Purpose This article examines gig work—typified by technologically-based, on-demand, independent contractor arrangements—for people with disabilities. Methods To do so, it draws upon prior and current research to describe the nature of gig work for people with disabilities, as well as the challenges and new prospects that such work presents. It also discusses recent regulatory reforms and proposes improvements, particularly in light of the current pandemic. Results Participation in the traditional employment market for people with disabilities who can and wish to work remains limited, even when workplace accommodations and individualized adjustments are possible. Increasingly, though, self-directed or independently contracted work is a way for people with disabilities to participate in the mainstream economy. The “gig economy,” in particular, has provided additional opportunities for self-directed work, although the novel coronavirus pandemic has required existing approaches to be reconceived. Conclusions The gig economy provides new prospects, as well as challenges, for people with disabilities to engage in meaningful work. It also requires innovative regulatory responses to the gig work relationship, especially during the pandemic era. Keywords Right to employment · COVID-19 · Disability studies · Government regulation · Workplace Gig work—typified by self-directed, on-demand contracting arrangements using a company’s online platform to arrange work tasks—has created new prospects for people with disabilities to participate in the economic mainstream. In this article, we consider ways in which gig workers with disabilities may enter and succeed in this fast-developing sector. We also consider the challenges gig work presents for people with disabilities as they endeavour to engage in the mainstream economy. Unfortunately, in the past, people with disabilities who have had the capacity and desire to work have been limited in their entry to and participation in the traditional employment market, even when workplace accommodations and individualized adjustments were possible [1, 2]. Disability
* Peter Blanck [email protected] Paul Harpur [email protected] 1
University of Queensland Law School, St Lucia, Australia
Burton Blatt Institute, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA
2
antidiscrimination laws in the United States, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) in 1990 [3], and similar laws of other countries [4], were designed to reduce attitudinal and structural barriers to employment for people with disabilities. But such barriers persist: attitudinal barriers include express and implicit discrimination [5], as well as governmental or regulatory policies that act as disincentives to employment [6]. Structural barriers include the ways in which tasks are arranged and organize
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