Please read article below and answer questions.

Executive Summary

1. What is Little Tech and three problems created by it?

2. The first Key Finding of the report is that The current proliferation of tech products has the potential to continue eroding labor standards and weaken worker voice and worker power, while also increasing the potential for discrimination and other harms. [p. 7]. What are the six primary issues described for the First Key Finding?

3. Which two issues do you believe are most problematic?

4. Find one article on either of the issues you believe are most problematic. After reading the article you selected and pages 6 - 8 in the Executive Summary, use at least two course concepts to explain why this issue is problematic from an ethical perspective. [You must include a link to the article or you will not receive credit for this portion of the assignment]

We are currently experiencing a tech boom _ investors we dub "Little Tech"; the unregulatmany say can only be matched by the origi- ed marketplace of tech products that are colnal dotcom boom of the late ' 90 s that gave lecting and aggregating data about workers at rise to Big Tech.' 1 Whether in the workplace, almost every step of the labor process - hirjob markets, education, health, housing, or ing/recruitment, workplace safety and producfinancial services, privatized tech products tivity, workplace and public benefits, reskilling/ are proliferating at a speed unlike what we've retraining, et al. Our focus in this paper is on seen before, turning these issue areas into un- this ecosystem of smaller tech companies, regulated markets that further a privatization whose influence and role in society is both agenda. While society is still grappling with expanding and problematic. 2 The proliferation the social, political, and economic implications of tech products in the workplace and labor of the emergence of Big Tech, our current markets is also taking place in other arenas tech boom is giving birth to a new generation of social life (e.g., housing, financial services, of technology companies that undermine and education, etc.) and we have to contextualize skirt laws, and are not transparent about the these trends within the broader scope of how data they collect or how they profit from it. America's privatized tech innovation strategy Meanwhile, there is a lack of due diligence of in shaping social, civic, and economic life. tech products being conducted at every step of the process, from investors, to tech compa- If we are to address the structural power of nies, to the customers in the public and pri- the tech industry and the private capital that vate sectors that purchase them. While we still fuels it, we will need a mix of economic, need to address the challenges posed by Big policy, and regulatory interventions, along Tech companies (notably Facebook, Amazon, with encouraging and building worker voice Google, Microsoft, and Apple), we increasingly and power. also need to future-proof our strategies and interventions with emerging companies. Coworker's analysis of more than 550 tech products, companies, and investors reveals an A Summary of Our Five Key Findings 1. The current proliferation of tech products has the potential to continue eroding labor standards and weaken worker voice and worker power, while also increasing the potential for discrimination and other harms. Our analysis shows that technology is increasingly playing a role in shaping how the workplace, job markets, and the economy function; with serious implications for worker voice and power in a rapidly changing economy. Specifically, we have identified six ways that the growth in products and tech companies operating in this unregulated marketplace we call Little Tech is contributing to the exploitation of workers, particularly BIPOC and low-wage workers. The proliferation of gig economy companies and productivity-enhancing tech products are: - Deepening and accelerating the data- - Increasing the potential for employfication of employment 3 and extract ers, intentionally or not, to discrimimore (e.g., work, data, efficiency, nate on the basis of protected classes productivity) from workers without bet- (e.g., physical or mental disability, sex, ter pay and in many cases undermining race, age). Our analysis of Little Tech workers' safety and mental health. 4 To this products in our database found that most end, they are contributing to the ongoing lack the necessary safeguards and have reduction of labor standards, 5 continu- not conducted sufficient due diligence ing to shift the costs of production onto and impact assessment to ensure prodworkers 6 , and fissuring labor markets. 7 ucts do not discriminate on the basis of This is a concerning trend given that 1 in 3 protected classes under federal law. For U.S. workers currently rely on gig work to example, some workplace risk managesustain their livelihood. 8 ment tools integrate incarceration and other law enforcement data into their workplace management platform. 9 Making it easier for employers to - Accelerating the commodification of surveil and monitor workers, which low-wage workers' data, particularly undermines workers' privacy and curtails by increasing the amount and diversiprotected concerted activity, like union- ty of data points collected from them. ization and collective grievances. This is The increased data points that are being concerning because it has potential to collected on workers inside and outside undermine federal progress through the the workplace, which include everything possible passage of the PRO Act and the from health and medical info and biometestablishment of the White House Task ric data to movement, gestures, and acForce on Worker Organizing and Empow- tivities, are also being used to automate erment. 10 Meanwhile, for gig economy work and eventually disemploy those very workers or workers legally classified as in- same workers. 13 dependent contractors, employment and labor organizing surveillance can be used - Undermining workers' basic human to impose non-competes (i.e., watching right to disconnect, 14 by merging you to make sure you're not working for home and workplace, personal and someone else). professional, particularly when workers are required to use personal devices that Creating new tech-enabled ways for deliver data to employers, which can be workers to be economically exploited. used against them. For example, the ability to increase the monitoring of workers as well as the use of algorithmic (Black Box) pay models can increase the potential for establishing at-risk employment relationships or carry out wage theft 11 and wage suppression. 12 They can also enable multi-party collusion like wage-fixing and no-poaching under the guise of "best practices" or data-sharing