Are you a gig worker struggling to make ends meet? Do you feel the need to pursue multiple gig work jobs full-time to feed your family? Well, this U.S. Navy ad wants you to know, you can always quit and start building submarines instead.
The ad portrays gig work as an overwhelming unregulated dystopian hellscape, which is ironic, considering it was paid for by the same U.S. government that has so completely failed to regulate gig work that a U.N. poverty expert called the situation a human rights issue.
The ad follows American hero Rosie the Riveter, who is a grocery delivery worker, a rideshare driver, an NPC livestreamer, a call center worker, and a dog walker. The opening scene shows a Time-like magazine with the title, “Rosie’s Rough Gig: We Can’t Do It.” Doors are slammed in her face, people throw up in her car, and angry customers yell at her over the phone, all while she is strictly timed and rated on various apps. One person generously leaves her a $0.72 tip. Gig work in its current state is dehumanizing and does not pay nearly enough, the ad suggests.
The ad isn’t wrong. One study found that the pay algorithms in gig work have little transparency, so that it literally feels like gambling to get a living wage. DoorDashers, for example, beg people for tips because the company provides a base pay of $2 per hour. DoorDash has said that most of its workers deliver part-time to earn “supplemental income,” but many drivers said they rely on it as a full-time job. When New York City implemented a minimum wage for gig food delivery and rideshare drivers, Uber and DoorDash sued the city. Instacart encouraged drivers to deliver during a hurricane because “bad weather = good tips.”
Rosie’s salvation comes when she delivers food to a maritime manufacturing plant. Inspirational music swells as the video cuts to welders, scientists, and high-tech robots. “Get a gig that’s built to last,” a voice says. The words, “Learn more about maritime manufacturing: careersbuilttolast.com” appear on the screen.
That website, which is paid for by the U.S. Department of the Navy and Texas non-profit BlueForge Alliance (which receives Navy funding), offers a direct comparison tool between various maritime manufacturing jobs and gig work. Let us consider a sample comparison of a “non-destructive testing” worker and a gig worker. The manufacturing worker’s toolkit, the website says, is “🔎 🥼 📐.” The gig worker’s toolkit is “⛽ 🚗 🍕.”
The website also shows a text conversation between the manufacturing worker and the gig worker. “This job should come with an action movie soundtrack,” the manufacturing worker says. The gig worker responds with, “Yeah? Well THIS is what I've got going on today #humblebrag” and an image of 18 pizza boxes. Later in the conversation, the manufacturing worker writes, “BLINK TWICE IF YOU NEED ME TO SAVE YOU.”
The gig economy is obviously not the Navy’s direct responsibility. But it is quite striking that instead of trying to improve the state of gig work run by multi-billion dollar corporations that actively oppose measures to improve their workers’ lives, the government has simply opted to agree that it is bad, and use those working conditions to recruit for the military.
