The traditional union May day demonstrations, this year held under the banner “we are building tomorrow’s work today”, was the venue the German metals union IG Metall chose to launch the first of its kind platform: ‘www.faircrowdwork.org’. The web based platform looks to assist ‘crowdworkers’ develop a network across the country, learn about ‘virtual’ employers’ working conditions and pay, as well as benefitting from union backed legal assistance. Crowdworkers are typically Internet based freelancers who perform platform based online tasks of varying complexity for which they are often badly paid. With this new platform IG Metall is looking both to improve working conditions for this new and increasingly significant segment of the freelance labor market and also to stake its presence in an area until now outside its sphere of influence.
A million German freelance internet workers. They are in front of their screens, working from home, or in the train, or in a café… Oftentimes simple tasks are being carried out that as yet cannot be fully automated; for example proof reading computer translations, identifying and categorizing images, files and videos, and undertaking surveys. However sometimes the projects can be more complex such as writing software programs, designing cars etc. These ‘crowdworkers’ as they are called are incr
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