This week, I began my research into the potential for unionization and/or grassroots labor movements in existing gig industries. I started with the initial idea that I was going to try to narrow my topic down to either (a) a specific city, (b) a specific company, (c) a specific law/legal regime or (d) a specific sector of the labor movement. I was intending to center my research around the AFL-CIO’s position on gig labor and its stance on new technological developments in general. I also thought that maybe I would be able to incorporate legislative developments in various states or localities around the United States, because legal research and jurisprudence is something I have experience with.

I had other goals like sharpening a research question as well as creating a timeline for (a) initial research, (b) compilation, (c) production of research results. I was not too married to my research topic going into the first week and knew that I might change things up if necessary. However, it was challenging going into the first week of heavy research because I did not feel as if I was too interested in the preliminary ideas I had created in my head before I started research in earnest. I realized that this was because I had not specialized my topic enough and was unclear about really what pivot/scope I wanted to take in my project.

Throughout this span of this week, everything became a lot more clear in my head. I realized the connection between gig work and the ongoing Hollywood Writers’ Guild strike, which I am really interested in. I also realized that I should have just spent a lot more time reading articles adjacent to my research topic and percolating potential paths to go down. I initially did not know how to intermix legal research with a sociological survey that would be required for a deep-dive into Uber, Lyft, and other gig economy services. However, I learned by just doing it this week. I looked on HEINOnline, a legal research database, and found a trove of law review articles that perfectly fit into my niche of policy, the gigification of the economy, and potential workers’ responses to these trends.

At the end of the week, I had a much more focused topic and focus going into the rest of the research period. I will be examining a number of strategies to organize gig work — starting off with a Writers Guild of America/Screen Actors Guild style “guild” worker association. I will place my research within Uber, Lyft, but also discuss into the future of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, effectively creating a comparative analysis between these two worker movements. At the root of it, Hollywood writers and rideshare drivers are both gig workers affected by technology. I hope to use the learnings and recommendations of this study as a projection of what workers can do in all sectors that are rapidly changing due to tech.