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Why the Gig Economy Won’t Call Workers Employees

Paul Osterman Jacobin
The gig economy promised flexibility, but it also fudged one simple question: Who counts as an employee? This legal ambiguity undermines the rights of not just Amazon and Uber workers but the whole labor force.

This Week in People’s History, Aug 12–18, 2026

Portside
Young Frederick Douglass Shows Off His Silver Tongue (1841), The Brownsville Raid: The Story of America's Black Dreyfus Affair (1906), U.S. Jets, U.S. Bombs, but No U.S. Consequences (2016), Oh! What a Lovely War, for ‘Our’ Side (1846)