Gig Economy Leader to Embrace $15 Minimum Wage with Union Partnership

David Rolf’s brand-new book, The Fight for $15, is available in bookstores everywhere.

1. Elizabeth Dwoskin at the The Washington Post reports that SEIU and Airbnb are in talks about forming a partnership:

Under the terms being discussed, Airbnb, which has previously been at odds with unions, will endorse the union’s Fight for $15 and encourage vendors who provide services to homeowners on the Airbnb platform to pay their staff at least $15 per hour. The platform will also direct Airbnb hosts to cleaners that have been given a seal of approval from SEIU. The cleaners will be trained, certified and provide green home cleaning services to Airbnb hosts, according to documents reviewed by the Washington Post.

A poster child for the gig economy embracing the $15 minimum wage is a huge deal, obviously; it puts more pressure on organizations like Uber to do right by their employees. Dwoskin reports that the partnership was Airbnb’s idea.

2. Speaking of unions, local SEIU president (and friend of Civic Ventures) David Rolf has a wonderful piece in the new issue of American Prospect discussing many possible futures for the labor movement including worker ownership, control of work-distribution platforms, and the Shared Security platform he masterminded with Civic Ventures founder Nick Hanauer. It’s required reading which lays out a problem (declining union membership) and offers some forward-thinking solutions. Go check it out.