Why Haven't Unions Adjusted Well to the New Economy ?

[parochial boy]

This is a tendency that started before the emergence of gig economy jobs, and union membership has been declining for a while that. A large part is the increasing social atomisation of recent decades, with people being less likely to join organisations of any sort. All the more so with people changing jobs reguarly, fewer long term connections to colleagues and all the rest; but also exacerbated by legislation that has tended to weaken unions over all - making it simply less worthwhile to join one as the benefits aren't as high relative to the costs.

With the gig economy itself -a pretty big part of this is the question of socialisation. As in, back in the days of the industrial working class, people would work in the same jobs with the same people for years and years and this would create a sense of solidarity and comradeship of which union membership was a part. Nowadays and uber driver or delivery driver is mostly working alone, so clearly doesn't build those relationships, even more so when they tend to regularly move from one job to another - and without that sense of solidarity and mutual responsibility, less inclination to join a union.

Then the unions themselves are also oriented towards working industrial employees in terms of what they offer, the demands they make and so on. The situation of new service workers are somewhat different, so the offer needs to be somewhat different. All the more so given the precarity of these workers. An employee (usually) has certain protections against being fired or loss of income. With deliveroo, if a courier is being a bit uppity, well suddenly they get fewer jobs, and because they are self employed there's not a lot they can do. So little incentive to join a union, a lot of incentive to keep your head down and not lose work to the other couriers you are in competition with