Good morning, peeps, and welcome to WOKF Daily with Meet your Girl Danielle Moody recording from the Home Bunker. Folks, you know, there is right now a movement of sorts that is taking place, and I use the word movement because I really do pray that it isn't just a moment.
And what I'm referring to for this episode is the movement around workers' rights, the recognition that I think workers across industries, across the country are realizing about their day to day productivity not aligning with the return that they're getting for their blood, sweat and tears on the job. Sure, there are more jobs that are more laborious than others, ones that during the pandemic were deemed as essential, which just meant that other more privileged, more resourced people got
to stay at home. But as time is faded from that quarantine moment, it seems as if we have forgotten about workers once again. And I say that believing that we all have good intentions right of tipping service workers, of treating people with kindness and empathy. But there is a detachment that takes place right and there's a chasm that I think that is being built between the haves and the have nots in this country, and there are
multiple levels. And I get into a conversation today with Alexandria Revenel, who is a professor at UNC and author of the book Side Hustle Safety Net, and you know, in our conversation, Alexandria talks about this idea that we have that is an old narrative in our mind about the service worker around if you take you back in your particular state or city, around the fight for fifteen
right to raise the minimum wage. And there's always been this idea that why does the minimum wage need to be raised because the peace people that are working in low wage jobs are largely high schoolers, right that live at home with their families, and these are their summer jobs or holiday jobs. The reality is that is not the case, right, that a lot of low wage workers has families, need health insurance, need time off to be able to go to the doctors, to care for themselves,
to care for others. But the way in the stories, the way that we've thought about this and the stories that the media has upheld with regard to low wage workers needs to be disrupted, you know, And I think about how grateful we were right to those delivery people so that we could stay inside as they brought us our packages and our food and allowed us to continue functioning. Why they were literally on the front lines of the pandemic.
I think about all of the workers who are unable right to do their work from home remotely, and I think that during that time and now is many people are still working from home, myself included. You know, whether or not that's full time, part or part of the week, are able to be at home. There are millions of people whose jobs require them to be in person, and frankly, in our larger ecosystem, we need them to be in person.
But that doesn't mean that then those people are worth less and shouldn't be paid and provided with the opportunities to live full, whole, complete lives. So right now we're witness saying what I hope is a movement, a worker's movement that has seen CEOs and shareholders receive extraordinary kickbacks, build extraordinary wealth in the last several years. Why they
haven't seen their wages increase at all. And Alexandria, in her book and in this conversation gets into the bit of reprieve right that the Cares Act and other policies that were put forward during the height of COVID that gave people breathing room, that showed us the actual function of government is to be able to use our tax dollars to actually help each other and ourselves, not just
put bills into defense. We get into a conversation about opening up around basic income and what that could potentially look like. What we thought was this far off, you know, leftist idea could actually transform how society functions. So coming up next my conversation with Alexandria Revenel, author of Side Hustle Safety Net. Folks, I am very excited to welcome to OKF Daily for the very first time. UNC professor and author of the book Side Hustle Safety Net, How
Vulnerable Workers Survive Precarious Times. Alexandria Ravenel, Let's start off with you know, every time that I talk with people who focus on labor and focus on workers, I go back to the beginning of the pandemic, Alexandria, and I know that your book goes back way, you know, further than that, you know, into the beginning of like of workers'
rights and these things. But I go back to the beginning of the pandemic, when we were all applauding essential workers, the delivery people that were dropping off our sixty five Amazon packages a day, the delivery folks that were dropping off our food so that we could stay home, those
of us that were privileged enough to do so. I think it was the only time when I believe that we were cognizant of those people who were putting their lives on the line so that the rest of us could be healthy, somewhat at peace at home, right, Alexandria. That lasted for a about a hot five minutes.
Yes, it did, and then we went right back into ignoring those workers and not tipping them or tip baiting them, and to the companies continuing to exploit these workers.
You know. And the other day, I live in New York, right, and there is legislation that is being pushed right now to make the e bikes that all of the delivery and people who don't know in New York City, our delivery drivers do not drive cars. So when it is winter, when it is you know, twenty degrees outside, they are
on bicycles or e bikes. And there's a legislation being pushed right now to make those free because again they're the ones paying for these bicycles so that they can work right, and to make them safe because they also explode, just killed and have killed people. So I say all of this to kind of lay the context that like, I don't understand how people who work can be anti worker, and I just want to, you know, for you to walk us through this kind of side hustle that we
have believed. I guess over the last several years that well, you know, this is just extra money that these that the drivers, the delivery folks that this that that are doing, and so they don't really need protections because they got protections in their quote unquote real jobs. So talk to us about the lie of the side hustle gig economy and what your book lays out for us.
Oh wow, Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to get a chance to talk about this. So, you know, in the US, we are in a little bit of denial about who our workers are and what their experiences are actually. Like, you know, for years people have been like, oh, well you don't need to pay the wage workers very much because it's high school students. But in reality, we know that about a third of minimum wage workers actually are
adults with families. Right, Like, this is not just the days of that just being a high schooler's job that is done. And especially when it comes to these gig workers, you know, I blame put some of the blame on these platforms. For years, they've talked about, oh, the flexibility, make your be your own boss, make your own salary, and people have really bit into that, like, oh, yeah,
it's a side hustle, it's something else. But they don't realize is a lot of times on these platforms, the only way you can make any money is if you actually devote all of your time to doing this. You know, most of those delivery workers, whether they are on these e bikes in New York or they're in cars and their places, they spend a lot of their time sitting
around waiting for gigs. I'm in New York, I walk through the parks and I see these collections of they're generally young men sitting there waiting or rides and.
Hopefully they're grabbing some food.
And you can see when the dinner or lunch rush starts, they all, you know, their phones start pinging and they are off on these e bikes and they are really
exposed to the elements. You know, the ones that are on e bikes you often see like the pouches around the handlebars and like garbage bags to try and protect their hands as they're out and about, and they're not always wearing helmets, and you know, it's the bikes are getting stolen, and oftentimes even those bikes, they are paying to rent them, or they've paid for them out of their own pocket.
And it's just more and more money coming.
Right out of out of their earnings, which they're already getting sort of you know, hand overhand, you know.
And it's it's so interesting because I think that you know, when we had our attention focused right, and that was you know, for lack of a better term, the beauty of the pandemic for those of us again that were privileged enough to slow down and to be indoors, is to kind of see this larger ecosystem Alexandria that we exist inside of that we don't really pay attention to. That in order for us to be able to live
and survive, we need other people. We need other people that are able to do the jobs that either we don't have the time to do or frankly don't want to do, but have the resources to pay those people out right. We never think, though, when I, for instance, them going into the nail salon to go and get my nails done every week, whether or not the tip that I'm providing is actually going to that person, right or a portion a larger portion is coming out of
their pocket. Anytime I'm in new cities and I'm getting an uber or a lyft, I ask them about what portion of the ride that they're actually taking home? Is this the only job that you have? How long are you out? How many rides do you get? What does an average day bring in? Not because as I'm nosy, I mean partly that, but because I genuinely am interested in how people survive in really expensive cities right without
any safety net at all? And so what do you find one to be the biggest lie about the side hustle that you want a myth that you want to bust. But also why, Alexandria, is there such a damn disconnect between and a growing disconnect right between the haves and the have nots, and the have more and the have you know, beyond more right, Like, there is just this growing disconnect and I want to understand how you understand it through your research.
Yeah, thanks for asking that. So I think the biggest myth is this idea of flexibility that you have to give up security, income security, job security in order to have flexibility. You know, people who work for Corporate America, they can go to the dentists in the middle of the day, they can work early, they can work like especially now, where you know they might spend half of
their week working remotely. We have flexibility. Companies make a conscious decision to deny flexibility to their worst paid workers, to their lowest status workers. And so you have these gig platforms that come in and say, hey, we will give you flexibility, but you're not gonna have any workplace protections.
You're not going to have a secure income. You're not going to know how much you're getting made, how much you're going to get paid, because even if you think that the platforms are taking a certain percentage, sometimes they're changing the percentage and they don't want to tell you that. And so you see these workers that are like, well,
I can't get a sufficient number of hours. My paycheck is stagnating, expenses are going up, Inflation is high, gas prices are skyrocketing, and so they turn to these side hustles because they view it as something they can sort of, you know, put in here and there. But the reality is that that work's not always available when you want it. Let's say you want to do food delivery during so called mother's hours, right, kids are in school nine two nine until three, But in reality, there an't gonna be
whole lot of deliveries during those hours. And so even when workers kind of have it's just like a back of mind safety net that they can turn to gigwork, it really isn't. And in terms of your question about inequality, you know, I think I think we've seen a couple
of different things here. We've seen that the companies that have W two workers are paying them more to be competitive, They're giving them additional benefits, and we're seeing that this sort of second tier of workers, at least in view of the company's eyes, they're kind of that reserve labor force in sociology terms, right.
They are there to kind.
Of bear the burden and to have their work sort of subsidized. The wages of these typically middle class and upper middle class professional workers, you know.
And it's really interesting because I think that when you piece together the fact that a lot of people are looking for these quote unquote side hustles, but not as not in a way where it was to turn your passion into your profession, right, because again I think that this is another big misnomer, right, like, oh, I'm doing
this to turn my passion into my profession. Well, where in reality, people are having to get two and three jobs so that they can have ends meet, So they have the one job that they may not like, but that's the one that gives them health care, but it doesn't give them flexibility or enough hours to be able to make ends meet, pay rent, pay a mortgage, right, more likely rent than a mortgage at this at this place.
And so I wonder when we're looking at this and even like you would highlighted before the fight for fifteen that happened in major cities, even my own parents, who live in the suburbs of New York were and who are arguably progressive, said to me, well, my mother is, but he said to me, you know, why do people need fifteen dollars an hour? When I was working as a kid, I was making X, Y and Z, and
I said, because the lie which you aired out. But I kind of want to go digging deep into this because there's a narrative change that also needs to happen around how we think about workers and who is working. Is this idea that it is just kids that need a summer job, just you know, young people that are starting wow, when in fact I just saw recently that there are a third of New Yorkers that are paying fifty percent of their earnings to rent.
Yes, New Yorkers are famously rent poor.
They spend way too much of their money, way too much of.
Their income on rent because housing prices here are so expensive. And so yeah, you do see these people that are working multiple jobs.
I call it poly.
Employment, this idea of working, yes, polly employment inspired by one of my respondents who was polyamorous, and I was like, well, have you got that many lovers and you got that many jobs?
That's an interesting combination.
But yeah, so you have these workers that have this poly employment, and this poly employment sometimes we hear it referred to as like hyphenated workers. It can mean lots of different things. You might be a creative freelancer, who has six different freelance clients. Well, guess what when you try to go for unemployment or you try to go for an apartment, having that many different sources of income actually complicates.
Things a lot.
Well, you lost one client, so do you still do you get unemployment? No, you probably don't because you're still quote working.
We also see that.
This poly employment really complicates things in terms of when people are making their money. So you have six different employers, you might end up getting, you know, paid on Tuesday this week, and maybe next week you're paid on Wednesday, or maybe they figure, well you're freelance, right, we don't have to pay you on time. That's the whole point behind the like freelance isn't free campaign from the freelancers Union.
But yeah, no, it's really tough.
And you know, even let's just take a moment back. Even if let's say all these minim wage workers were high schoolers, what makes us think that it's okay to exploit high schoolers? Right? Like? Why these are not these are not easy jobs? Right, You're not sitting behind a desk, you're flipping burgers, you're in a hot restaurant, you're working doing all these different jobs, Like, let's pay people for
how important that job is. Let's pay them based on what that job is worth and not sit They're like, oh, well, I mean it reminds me of kind of what we used to say about like women's wages back in the eighteen hundred, yeah, early nineteenth right, Like right, you don't need the money.
Because they have husbands, right, yeah, but.
No, you know what people ought to be paid for what they're doing, and their race, their sex, their age should not factor into how much they're getting paid.
Why do you think, Alexandria, that we are experiencing right now this strike movement right where it is, It is happening across industries, just as right before I signed on to here, UAW is expanding or strike by five thousand, you know, by five thousand more workers. They've been kind of doing this trickling, right of shutting down different different cities, different plants at different times. But we've seen it everywhere
from auto workers to writers to actors. We've seen it with teachers, we've seen it in the healthcare industry, all in the in the past few years, right, and when I say few, I mean like the past three So what like, what do you believe as somebody that has been studying this is sparking it, and like is is this Is it a movement or is it a moment?
That's a good question.
So people aren't stupid, right, Like we had the pandemic, and two things happen. One, people realize like you could get you could get knocked out by a virus, right, you could die from this, you could end up with long COVID, you could simply just end up really sick. And the other thing that happens is we have this Cares Act. We give people unemployed, We give them some
of the most generous unemployment in the world. During the Cares Act, right, seventy six percent of recipients of unemployment between April and July twenty twenty are making more on unemployment that they have been making while working. And they're making that money. They're receiving that money without having to go and endanger themselves, without having to leave home, withouting to pay for dry cleaning work, lunches, et cet relevant to commute the.
Whole nine yards.
People use that time to rest, to reflect, to reset. You know my books I'd Hustle Safety and it is based on one hundred and ninety nine respondents. So we interviewed multiple times throughout the pandemic, and over and over again, people said, you know what, I got, this Cares Act money. And I decided, I'm going to spend time really thinking about what i want to do when this pandemic. I want to think about my career. I'm not going to
work with people I don't want to work with. I'm gonna take on projects that I want to take on. And yeah, if people had small children, they had to teach at home and run everything. That was very stressful.
But when this money came in, it let people sort of get a glimpse of what life could be, get a glimpse of that, like, you know, upper middle class professional life where the money is coming in every week and the bills are good and you can work remote, and like, I think it gave people just enough of a taste. And then we go back into this like oh back you know, business as usual, and people are like, oh no, no, no, no no. I chased the promise land.
I want the promise Land. And you know, as you brought up yourself right, we were recognizing workers in New York.
We were clapping every night, at seven pm.
And I think that people realize, wait, we can come together, and if we can come together and we'ren't happy with work, the answer is a strike. The answer is union organizing. The answer is labor taking on some of the the biggest approval ratings that we have seen in decades.
You know what I think too, also happened during that time again for those that were privileged enough to have some rest and reflection, is also this idea that we watched how wealthy people became uber wealthy, right, like there was it. There is such a And you tell me because I grew up during the time of you know, lifestyles of the rich and famous, of remembering seeing that, you know, come across the television screen in my grandparents' home.
I you know, there have always been rich people, right, There's always been people that have had more than everybody else. What do you think though, that it is about this current cycle of wealth that is producing this type of pushback in anger that is different from other points in our history.
So, you know, one of the things we did with interviewing these one hundred and ninety nine workers, we interviewed them very early in the pandemic, beginning in April twenty twenty, we have this paper. Some of us are in yachts and some of us are in Dinghy's. And what happened, especially in the New York area, is that, you know, all the low age workers were stuck in New York, right, It's like Hurricane Katrina all over again. You don't have a car, you don't have a beach house, you don't
have anywhere to go to. And all the wealthier people, all the you know, the owners of those restaurants, all of Wall Street, they all fleeted their second homes. And so many of my respondents were like, I'm abandoned, Like they literally just left, and we're like, yeah, catch it later.
I hope you'd make it through this. And so I think for a lot of people, it was this strong realization that you know, for most workers, we really are just kind of cogs in the machine, like there is isn't there's no one really looking out for you.
And I think that.
Sense of sort of being abandoned during you know, in the early days of the pandemic, it was like something out of a horror movie, right, Like the streets are empty, people are scared, you're just hearing sirens and so I think for a lot of people that was really kind of energizing in a sense of like we need.
To fight back. I think it is. I think what we are.
Seeing now is going to lead, I hope, to just major change going forward.
I think that we are living in, and you're writing on and reporting on a really interesting time. I don't know where we will be five and ten and fifteen years from now in terms of whether or not we're able to glean at that point with some distance, whether or not this really is a movement or if it
is a fleeting moment. But what I do recognize is that how wealthy people have become has created this lack of empathy and this detachment from humanity in a way that again I have not seen before in my lifetime. And I think that just the imagery that you created just now of here are the uber wealthy that fled right that literally were able to go to their country homes, go to their Hampton homes, go to wherever else because the outdoors were safe and they had real estate in
those outdoors. But for everyone else who were in studio apartments with multiple people, that were fine when we were all going to work in school at different times, all of a sudden you felt the constriction, you felt the strain, and I think it just became ever like a parent, and that kind of that imagery I think has stayed with us, you know now years later. So final thoughts for you on what you hope folks will will take from your book side Hostle safety Net.
So one of the things I'm hoping people take is this idea that you know, we gave people money during the pandemic and people were able to use that money for positive things. Right. We often have this idea of like, oh, the scariest sentence is like I'm from the government, I'm here to help. But it actually turns out that government money can be a game changer, especially for workers who
are struggling. So workers were able to open businesses, they were able to return to school, Some of them left gig work far far behind and ended up becoming things like communityhabilitation specialists helping individuals with disabilities to transition into being independent in society on their own. And so you know, this was this was a really positive thing, and I think that, if anything, it really kind of gives a lot of credence towards various programs for basic income, for
guaranteed income. Because if these are the things that people can accomplish during a hopefully once in a generation pandemic, how many more incredible things could people accomplish if it was safe to go and congregate with people, if you you know, didn't weren't under orders or suggestions to stay at home or to stay out of, you know, places
where you were collecting with other people. So I think that there's there's a really strong case to be made here for a lot of sort of government support for everyone in order to sort of equalize the playing field and allow people to move forward in their careers and then their lives.
Yeah, and I think that it would be great to not you know, punish people for being in poverty, and to not punish people for being workers, the very people that make our country move. So Alexandria, thank you so much for making the time to join wokef folks. The book is side Hustle, Safety Net, How vulnerable workers survive precarious times. It is out, pick it up, discuss it because that is how we turn these moments into movements. Appreciate you, thank you. That is it for me today,
Dear friends on woke. Af as always power to the people and to all the people.
Power.
Get woke and stay woke as fuck.