Workers are being urged to form co-operatives they collectively own to protect their entitlements and to out-do Uber and Airtasker at their own game.
US lawyer Janelle Orsi, who was in Sydney at Vivid Ideas last week, said the business model used by Uber, Airtasker and Airbnb could be cloned and used in a way that could protect a growing number of workers from exploitation.
She said a few giant companies had created a good business model but they had little incentive to do the right thing by workers. But workers could eventually create their own online apps instead of using the ones owned by billionaires.
Ms Orsi, from the Sustainable Economies Law Centre in California, said there were winners and losers in the gig economy. While many benefit from the independence of contract work, others flounder and struggle to make enough money to survive. She said some workers had been sacked with no understanding of why they had lost their jobs.
"There is quite a spread of people who are either really happy with the platform and the work they are doing or not very happy at all. Which also makes it hard to unify the workers around a similar cause and collectively bargain," she said.
"I am not critical of the concept itself, but I'm very concerned that it plays out in a way that does not benefit workers and I think the ownership model has a lot to do with it.
"We need to change the ownership of the aps so workers can own them instead of big companies."
Hard won benefits including sick leave and paid holidays could be protected if workers formed their own Uber-style online platforms.
"The model of having shareholders own the company for the purpose of earning a profit for themselves means they have set up a direct conflict between the shareholders and the workers," she said. "The less the workers get the more the shareholders get."
Ms Orsi said some US online companies were taking 20 to 30 per cent of a worker's takings.
"When you take the shareholders out of the picture entirely and there is no obligation to earn that sort of profit, it allows the company to shift the focus of its concern to the workers, especially if it is the workers controlling it," she said.
Workers who have lost entitlements in the gig economy could renegotiate them as part of a collective with an ownership stake in the platform.
"I think many or most workers are happier being in a more stable work environment and working with other people. But I do think there is a place for independent workers and the consumer demand that is creating jobs in that sector," she said.
But the traditional employment model had also resulted in poor outcomes and the exploitation of low-wage earners in the US.
"What we need is change," Ms Orsi said.
By the year 2020, she said it was expected that about 40 per cent of the US workforce would be made up of contractors.
