BRAUN: Gig economy and coronavirus, match made in hell – Toronto Sun

Looking for a sign of the times?

Go to the movies.

Two films currently in theatres tackle the culture’s biggest issue — the growing spread between haves and have-nots.

The gap between rich and poor is cause for concern at all times, but when the coronavirus makes itself felt here, the inequity could become a life and death situation. (Actually, it already is: In America, death rates for the working class via suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse are alarming.)

Let’s just say the coronavirus will make a bad situation a lot worse.

As Emily Guendelsberger writes in the Washington Post, “When the rich and powerful can avoid any contact with serious societal problems — whether that’s a pandemic, underfunded public schools or our brutal, nonsensical health-care system — they have little investment in fixing things.”

That rich-poor split is captured by filmmaker Michael Winterbottom and actor Steve Coogan in Greed, a comedy with a very serious message about capitalism. The movie is not so much about the fate of the poor as it is about the way the game is rigged for the wealthy; garment billionaire Sir Richard McCreadie (Coogan) has built his fortune on the backs of exploited workers and — with each of his convenient bankruptcies — suddenly redundant retail workers.

On the dramatic side, Ken Loach’s film Sorry We Missed You is a devastating look at the gig economy in the UK and how insecure work affects families.

Ricky (Kris Hitchen) and Abbie (Debbie Honeywood) are a solid working class couple with two good kids. They’ve never quite recovered from the financial crisis of 2008, but the story opens with Ricky getting a new job as a delivery driver.

The work appears to be a form of self-employment and it’s described as a franchise, but it quickly becomes obvious that Ricky is being exploited. Anything that goes wrong is his financial responsibility. He’s working without a net, and the wear and tear may kill him.

His wife, meanwhile, is a care worker and stretched to the limit. Abbie does home visits for the aged and infirm, racing from one appointment to the next; in between, she’s on her phone keeping the children organized.

Here is the inevitable collapse of the family as the parents are overwhelmed and the kids are increasingly neglected.

At 83, award-winning filmmaker Loach (I, Daniel Blake; The Wind That Shakes The Barley) has spent more than 50 years exposing the worst of social inequity with his camera.

Sorry We Missed You shows how the gig economy brutalizes workers and grinds down entire families, the bedrock of society.

“As a situation, this is intolerable,” Loach said in a recent interview. “And look what we’ve lost.”

A generation ago, he says, you would expect to find secure employment that would allow you to plan your life accordingly.

“You’d go on holiday and be paid, be able to be sick and not lose money,” Loach said. “There was a security, and you could plan your life and family, knowing there was a sustainable income. And that’s gone.”

“It’s all been eroded, and the new technology has become a mechanism for employers to increase exploitation,” he said.

Loach adds, “The way to keep costs low is to cut labour costs. The way to cut labour costs is to pretend people are self-employed when in fact, they’re just workers. But call them entrepreneurs and you owe them no duty of responsibility.”

Those chickens come home to roost where the gig economy and the coronavirus meet — especially in the U.S., with its deadly combo of for-profit medical care and a large work force with no sick leave (or any other benefits).

You’re sick, but cannot afford either to see a doctor or take a day off work.  So you’re on the job delivering parcels, dropping off groceries, ferrying passengers in your car. You’re an independent worker, so none of this is Uber’s problem, or Amazon’s or Doordash’s, right?

As Guendelsberger writes, “Not our problem” could be the motto of the gig economy.

“It’s not any of these companies’ problem that the incentives of the gig and low-wage economy come together to create perfect conditions for spreading an epidemic.”

lbraun@postmedia.com