♪ ♪ DIEGO GERENA-QUIÑONES: Being a
bike person is really just, that's who I am. I started messenger work in 2012 as an employee
at a messenger service. Demand was good, and the supply of couriers
was low, and you could make a lot of
money back then. NARRATOR: America is in the
midst of a workplace revolution. Gig work. Globalization. Robots. Cobots. Artificial intelligence. Are workers in danger
of becoming obsolete in this disrupted landscape? ♪ ♪ How will they stay relevant? ♪ ♪ GERENA-QUIÑONES: These companies
move rapidly towards automation. Now you don't even deal with
people. If you have questions,
there's nowhere you can go. There's no phone numbers. You send an email,
maybe you get a response, maybe you don't,
and so there's just... no love. (soft chuckle) Now, you got guys out there
working ten-hour days, maybe scraping by $150. They're scrambling during lunch
and dinner to get that money. They're doing 20, 30 deliveries, riding 20, 30 miles, maybe more. I was, like,
"I don't want to do that." ♪ ♪ MAN: The American dream
is very much at risk. WOMAN:
Americans can't work any harder. MAN: Robots are coming to take
my job. MAN: It's not even the future--
it's the now. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR:
When the pandemic struck, it accelerated America's
work revolution. The future was here. And for some, the future was
unsparing. ♪ ♪ CARLOS GUTIERREZ:
During the pandemic, a lot of us stayed at home
and didn't have to commute. We were all safe. But a lot of people had to go
out and work every day, and take the Metro, and get near people, and get near people
without masks. I'm sitting in a space
that's open-office and it's completely empty. ♪ ♪ What I think it has exposed
is how dependent the professional class
is on the service workers. (indistinct radio chatter) HYMAN: And the service workers, some of them are considered
essential, like nurses and firefighters. But not checkout people or delivery people. ♪ ♪ MICHELLE WEISE:
What the pandemic really did is, it lay bare these more foundational and fundamental
cracks in the system. ♪ ♪ Even before the pandemic hit, we had close to 41 million
Americans who were just not earning
a living wage. They were just struggling
to navigate the workforce. ♪ ♪ HYMAN:
Secure jobs are what about the top 30% of Americans
experience. And insecurity is what the rest of America experiences. They're not certain how much is
going to be in that paycheck because they may not have gotten
enough hours that week or enough jobs that week. They don't have enough money in case of an emergency. They don't have enough money
to always pay their bills. GERENA-QUIÑONES: People like me have two and three
different jobs. Over the years, it got a little bit harder
to make, you know, decent money. I just want a dignified
experience where I feel like I matter to the whole operation. I get asked a lot about
the future of work. The one survey that I read
that really said something different to me simply asked existing workers,
what did they want? What was the future of work
that they were hoping for? What they wanted was
to know the rules. "Do I need to get a high school
degree, a college degree? "Just tell me and I'll do it. "And if I do it,
I want a guaranteed job "for the rest of my life, "I want my weekends and evenings
free, so that I can buy a house
and raise a family." (laughing) ♪ ♪ The deal has changed. The old deal was,
"I went to school for 12 years. "I acquired a set of skills. "Those skills took me
through a 30-year working life, "and then I got to retire at 65 with a nice, defined
benefit plan." Well, the new deal is, now,
there are no guarantees-- there's no certainty. I think at the heart of this
is the shift in the deal from "I learn, I do, I retire" to "I learn, I do, I learn,
I do, "and I come back
and learn a whole bunch, and then I keep doing."
- No hands. JESUTHASAN: It is completely
at odds with everything that we have told
the American worker about what it takes to stay relevant
in this world of work. ♪ ♪ OREN CASS:
But the reality is that things can only change as fast as workers can learn to do
the new things. There's no giant pool of
reserve workers who already know how to do the new things that are waiting in the wings
to come charging in. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: A technology
is considered futureproof when it's unlikely to become
obsolete. But in this era
of profound disruption, can workers themselves
be futureproofed? ♪ ♪ JUAN LOPEZ:
I was a telemarketer. I was a telemarketer. And what service would you like
to sign up for today? LOPEZ:
I hated that job. Oh, my God. I'm, like, "Man, this is not
the job for me." And then I joined the military
and... Getting out, I was trying to
figure out what was the biggest, baddest thing
happening in Texas. The oil field was booming
during the time and... I moved to San Angelo during the time when I was
working in the oil field and bought a house out there. ♪ ♪ And then exactly almost a year
after we bought the house, like, I got laid off. ♪ ♪ I was laid off, and then
for a while, I was lost. (humorless chuckle):
I was lost. And I just saw wind turbines
and was, like, "Well, what about that thing?" NARRATOR: Juan Lopez stepped
into one of the fastest-growing energy sectors. In Texas, wind power has created
thousands of jobs. ♪ ♪ (machinery humming) BILLIE JONES: The companies that
come here and hire, everyone's needing 50 to 150
to 200 new employees, just right now. INSTRUCTOR: How did you,
how did you adjust it? With that... Mechanically,
what is that valve doing? - It's opening up. So we are having a hard time
keeping up with their demand. Knowing that I'm going to
a broken tower and... JONES: Juan was probably one of
the best students we've had. You know,
you, you fix that tower. JONES: Someone who's focused... LOPEZ: We did a lot of
troubleshooting... JONES: ...detail-oriented,
and has a drive. Understanding what it takes that makes these wind turbines
function, you know, you're already writing
yourself a check just by sitting in those seats. Try to soak up as much
as you can in school. So, we're going to help you,
give you that little extra pay raise, right? INSTRUCTOR:
Harness inspection. JONES:
There are quite a few people that are transitioning from oil
to wind. INSTRUCTOR: And remember to
check your leg straps. Check your buckles. Make sure your latches are good. JONES: These guys that have
worked derricks, if you work a derrick, you've got to be able to climb
that ladder. You got to know how to put
a harness on. INSTRUCTOR:
Disconnect your lanyards. Over your shoulders... JONES: You got to know how to be
safe at height. We're still working with
a lot of our tools. So there are quite a few
transferable skills. There are these kind of constant
infusions of new skills that we're going to have
to somehow attain-- different sorts of skills
that translate into deeply needed skills
in other domains. ♪ ♪ LOPEZ: In the military, I started off my first five
years as a jet engine mechanic. I gained mechanical skills,
electronics. Oil field,
I learned hydraulic systems, hydraulic fracturing,
and I carried that into school to study wind turbines. ♪ ♪ JONES:
What can I take with me? What can I port over from this
industry into another? I like working with my hands. So I figured climbing wind towers
for a living and watching them go
from not spinning to spinning, it's a pretty big achievement. JONES: This can be a very
dangerous industry. I take students out to the
turbine so that, number one, I can see if they're capable of
climbing the turbine safely. And two, it tells them if this is something
they're going to want to do for a career. ♪ ♪ MAN:
Keep all your stuff in your bag. You know, like, if you drop
something and it goes down tower,
you know, it can be dangerous. If you drop anything,
you fail your climb test. It starts to hurt your forearms. You know, you don't got to be
the tough guy. If you can't climb fast,
it's okay. I'm not going to be climbing
fast, you know, so... Find a pace that you're
comfortable with. ♪ ♪ So it's roughly a 300-foot climb up the ladder. I always have the, you know, your-kid-on-their-first-bike-
ride nervousness. 'Cause these, I mean,
these are my students, so I'm always worried that... I don't want anyone to get hurt. It's my first time, so it's going to be definitely
a first-time experience. - Who's going first? ♪ ♪ WEISE:
Moving from the military to oil and gas,
and then into wind turbines, that's a really exciting way
to move successfully and navigate across
industry domains. But it's not necessarily
the easiest pathway. It's not easily navigable. LOPEZ: I feel that this industry
is more stable. I'm able to benefit
a lot more from it. If I do everything right,
if I'm safe about everything, I'll have a job tomorrow. NARRATOR: But will he? Or is Juan in danger
of becoming obsolete? JONES: Don't climb with one leg
on the top, because you're gonna burn out. There you go. ♪ ♪ MING:
Is your job truly futureproof? "Jobs are at risk. "A.I.'s going to take them over,
except not mine. Mine can only be done
by a human." ♪ ♪ "How could you possibly automate
that?" But in fact, that's the big
question. How can I automate that? Because I guarantee someone is tackling that question
right now. So, uh, we'll go up in here,
we'll open that hatch, where you guys can look out
for a minute, and then we'll head back down. Now you can look out. MING: For many people,
futureproofing means, teach your kids how to program. But if you think that that will
magically proof your child against the future,
you are very, very wrong. And, to be fair,
you're not alone. Wow! Yoo-hoo! MICHAEL J. SORRELL:
Futureproofing, it's a little more challenging
now, because the information age, the digital age, has introduced
a pace of change that frankly, people are
struggling to keep up with. JONES:
Everybody's safe. Everybody feels good. ♪ ♪ JESUTHASAN:
As technology accelerates, the skills that we've counted on
for decades, if not centuries, are perhaps going to be
rendered obsolete. SORRELL: We should place
a premium on getting people to function in an
interdisciplinary way that is incredibly versatile, because that's what the
workforce is going to demand. NARRATOR: As new technology
disrupts the workplace, staying relevant will require
new skills. But what kinds of skills? ♪ ♪ JESUTHASAN: Lots of companies are experimenting
with agile ways of working. ♪ ♪ If you go to an airport
in this country, you'll see the person
who checked you in actually also being the gate agent, maybe even also ducking down to help the baggage handlers
with loading baggage. Minimal staffing is this
approach to getting work done where people are taking on
many different types of work and they are cross-trained. And the idea is that
there is a significant value to the organization
from that flexibility. JOHN ZUZICH: A littoral combat
ship, or an LCS, is a small surface combatant. They have much higher speed and they can get into
shallower waters. The Navy put new technologies
onboard the ship, where those systems could do portions of the work
that the sailors had traditionally done. (indistinct radio chatter) ALYSON PIERCE: The littoral
combat ship is designed for an optimal manned crew, which means we have less people to do the same amount of work. On a legacy ship, there may be
seven bridge watch standers at a time. ♪ ♪ We have two bridge watch
standers. So the officer of the deck
is not only overseeing everything
that's going on, but they're also now the ones
driving. ♪ ♪ This technology on board is absolutely a fundamental part
of how this ship operates and how it's designed
to operate. MITCHELL LARIOS:
Fishing Vessel Andrews, this is Warship 1. We received
your distress call... I'm the electronic materials
officer, I'm the ship's electronic
readiness team lead, fall protection program manager,
aloft program manager, watch stander, underway watches,
surface warfare officer. One of the most important
aspects of my job, if not the most important
aspect, is driving the ship. (indistinct radio chatter) ZUZICH:
In the training facility, we're replicating the actual
shipboard environment. ♪ ♪ The older sailors,
or the non-gamers, typically don't like
the virtual environments, and we have to play
with the system. We have to slow frame rates down
so that they don't get sick. The younger students, they're used to first-person
gaming, and they excel at the controls and the movement through
that gaming environment. LARIOS: A lot of us grew up
playing video games. And that hand-eye coordination
is kind of already built-in. We know what our hand is doing
on the combinator because it's similar to, like,
a joystick. ♪ ♪ There's a certain level
of comfortability you get with using your hands
without looking at what your hands are doing. My dad was in the Navy, but he never really talked
about it. It just never really came up
in conversation. But it wasn't really, like, kind
of, like, in the back of my mind up until my junior year
of high school. ♪ ♪ The Naval Academy felt right. It felt like that was the thing
I should do. Your ability to deal with
whatever situation is arising and being able to prioritize,
I think that translates really well into pretty much
any other field. ♪ ♪ CASS:
Whether you're on a Navy ship, whether you're in a
manufacturing plant, whether you're cutting
people's hair, getting more done
with fewer people is the way that we make progress. ♪ ♪ (bell clanging) NARRATOR: But what's driving
companies to use fewer workers? Is it progress? Or is it profits? DAVID SIEGEL: I think over
the last couple of decades, business leadership has become
very excited about reducing the need for humans
to be involved with work. Automation has been really
turbocharged by A.I., and robotics, and other advanced
computer technologies. Tax policy over the years
in America has implicitly favored
capital equipment-- robots and other machinery-- over
labor. BYRON AUGUSTE:
So, in other words, if you have a business problem, and you solve that same problem
with machines and software, your company will look
more profitable than if you solve exactly the same business problem
with people and training. Your stock price will be higher. Your executives will be making
millions of dollars more. NARRATOR:
Not everyone agrees. Many companies do strategize to
balance progress and profits. But what does this mean
for the jobs of tomorrow? My belief is, in the next
ten to 15 years, there's likely to be
a net loss of jobs. That is because the speed at which routine jobs
are being displaced will be faster than the speed at which new jobs
will be created. ♪ ♪ Tasks that are repetitive
in nature, that don't require
deep thoughts, strategic creative thinking-- those are the jobs that are
most in danger. And on the other hand,
if we look at a longer term-- maybe 20 to 30 years--
that doesn't account for the many jobs that will be
invented and created. But it's unfortunate that
we can't quite predict what those jobs are. Just like, if we went back
to 1995 and asked me what jobs would be created
by the internet, there's no way I would have
listed Uber driver. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: So how do workers
futureproof themselves for jobs that don't yet exist? CASS:
We don't know what the specific new jobs are going to be,
but I think we do know the kinds of skills
that people are going to need. And some of those are
soft skills, in terms of knowing how to work
with other people, in terms of knowing how to learn
to do new things. And some of them
are harder skills, whether that's in
a particular industry with a particular technology. (buttons beeping,
machinery whirring) JOHN RUSSO:
What's gonna happen when we have even more
technology, and when the new technology
displaces even more people? There are these narratives
out there. "If I just get a little bit
more education, I'm going to do better." And that's been the mantra
for people all the way along. "If you just get a little bit
more education." There's a lot of people
that have master's degrees that are now working in
fulfillment centers and working in part-time jobs. ♪ ♪ SORRELL: Futureproofing
is really what education was always supposed to be. Right? It was supposed
to provide you with the ability to be flexible. In essence, being employable. WEISE: The number-one reason
consistently for enrolling in post-secondary
education is to get a good job. But when you actually talk
to college graduates, they are consistently telling us that they don't actually feel
prepared for the, for the labor market. ♪ ♪ So people are starting
to wonder: is college worth it? ♪ ♪ AMIR NOORMOHAMMAD:
I am going for a degree in chemical engineering. Since I'm the oldest
and the first of my family to actually go into a college,
I'm the one who has to kind of figure that out. My parents are immigrants. They came from Pakistan
ages ago, and they're not too familiar with how a college system
works here. ♪ ♪ Currently, I'm part of the
alternative high school program at Truman College. So the general idea is that
I can take as many credits as I can here and while still
making some progress towards graduating high school. ♪ ♪ I can continue here
for two years and then transfer to
a four-year university. And that would make it more
affordable, because I'm not paying for
the full four years. I'm only paying for
the last two. ♪ ♪ But since my parents didn't
have, like, a college fund, like some families have,
I needed to find a way to pay for that in a way
that reduces the amount of debt and burden either
on my parents or myself. Because who wants to be in debt? ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Today,
student loan debt in the U.S. is over one-and-a-half trillion
dollars. That's more than the GDP
of Switzerland, Costa Rica, and Belgium combined. American students, on average, carry about $37,000
in school loans. But a college degree can more
than double lifelong earnings. AUGUSTE: We have a system
in the United States that's very much dominated
by college degrees as a pathway to work. NARRATOR: So when did a college
degree become the gold standard? ♪ ♪ WEISE: We used to actually be
able to acquire great jobs with only a high school degree. NARRATOR: In the 1940s,
a high school diploma was enough for
a middle-class life. But in 1944, the G.I. Bill
put higher education within reach for many more
Americans. Eventually, college degrees
would replace high school diplomas
as a standard for employability. WEISE: So with the G.I. Bill,
that's actually when we see this huge and vast
proliferation of universities
in the United States. NARRATOR: Still, by 1960, only about 45% of high school
grads went on to college. CASS:
And then in the 1970s, a real shift happened
in this country, from a model that had
what we called tracking-- where, in junior high
or high school, students would be placed
on different pathways-- to one that said, "No, we're,
we're going to have "a single pathway for everyone, and it's going to be
college-focused." WEISE: Slowly over the next
few decades, you see our high school
graduates just knowing that the next step
is college. NARRATOR: As more companies
require college degrees for jobs, two-thirds of
high school grads are heading straight to college. Even so, equal access
is the big challenge. The people who go to the top
colleges and universities, we really channel more white,
affluent students into those. And then for the more public,
open-enrollment universities, that's where we see a lot of
Black and brown people going. It never fails that the people
who say that college isn't for everyone are people
who have been college-educated, whose families have been
college-educated. So what they're saying is,
"College isn't for people like you, but it definitely
is for people like me." ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: And what about those
who don't go to college? What's the economic fallout? The data shows us that if you
don't have any education beyond a high school degree, you are about 50% more likely
to live in poverty than someone who has just a little bit beyond
that high school degree. So it is deeply and hugely
impactful to pursue some sort of education
beyond high school. ♪ ♪ AUGUSTE: So, if a young person
is very interested in an occupational field
that didn't require a bachelor's degree, typically,
and they said, "Should I still get
a college degree?", I would say, "Yes, you should
still get a college degree." Why? Because that's the system
as it exists today. (piano playing) NOORMOHAMMAD:
Since the last time we filmed, it was only a few months
before the pandemic forced us into lockdown. I finally graduated high school, so that's taken care of,
finally. I've been going to
community college. What I'm hoping for
in the next six months is to be living on my own
and trying to resume my career plans and the path
I had for myself for college. So... we'll see how that goes. (piece concludes) ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: But is a four-year
degree really the best measure of employability? What if it's not? JESUTHASAN:
The traditional lens that companies bring
to identifying the people with the right skills is flawed. They're still looking for
someone with a four-year degree. And quite honestly, you don't need that
for many of the jobs that you're trying to fill. In many situations, someone who has the right
certifications and skills could just as easily
do the work. - Did you make your bed?
- Mm-hmm. - Okay. TIFFANY SPRAGGINS: I was 30
years old when I originally decided
to go back to school. It wasn't comfortable for me. It wasn't comfortable
to go back to school. Which homework are you doing? But it's, it's a necessary
change. It's very necessary. You almost done? Can I see it? I've driven rideshare for Uber. I've cleaned the city of
downtown Minneapolis. I was a dispatcher overnight,
working, like, 12-hour shifts. I didn't feel like there was
growth at the jobs that I had. ♪ ♪ I've always been interested in,
like, the mechanics of things, how the internet works
with everything. Literally, when you go into
a search engine and you type something,
what happens and how does that information get brought back
to you? When I originally decided
to go back to college, I went to the Department
of Labor and Statistics website, and traditionally, you would see
what degrees are out there and see where that path
will take you. But I did it backwards. I looked at the salary
that I wanted to make, and what type of jobs paid
that kind of salary, and then the actual steps
to become that person and do that job. I've lived below the poverty
line before. And I wanted to make
a livable wage. When I was at
Wilbur Wright College, somebody actually approached me
from leadership at Accenture and told me about the
apprenticeship program. ♪ ♪ PALLAVI VERMA:
Apprenticeships is a very old concept
that has been sustained over a long period of time. It's more just a new concept for
what I'd call white-collar jobs. MING: Most people thinking
about apprenticeships, they're probably envisioning
something out of the Middle Ages,
very crafts-based, learning how to become
a blacksmith. And in some ways, it's not
completely different than that. The idea is, you spend time with
a highly skilled professional, supporting them directly
as a bit of an assistant, and then slowly moving into
doing parts of the job yourself, and then coming all the way
to being a full professional. ♪ ♪ JIM COLEMAN: There is definitely
a war for technology talent. But for years and years,
hiring somebody who didn't have a four-year degree was really
not part of the discussion in how we recruited
and attracted talent. MING: Hiring is a very
risk-adverse industry. And the one guaranteed way to not get yelled at is hire
a white guy from Harvard, because no one's going
to criticize you even if he's a total dud, because how could you
have known? Whereas, you take a risk on a Black woman with no degree
from someplace no one's ever heard of before,
and she doesn't work out? You lose your job. Would it be a C.I.O. or would it
be a cross-Accenture... Because, because, keep in mind,
if you're cross-Accenture... SPRAGGINS:
I'm a functions tester. My job is to test the functionalities
of the content apps that our company uses. And then you unselect it,
it trumps C.I.O. INSTRUCTOR: Correct. SPRAGGINS: When I'm working,
typically, it's learning. Some days, I come in and I know
exactly what I'm supposed to do. And then some days,
I'm approached with a work item or a scenario that
I've never encountered before. ♪ ♪ You could do the same dropdown
on C.I.O.? INSTRUCTOR: Yes. ♪ ♪ SPRAGGINS: A four-year degree
would be important as far as my next steps, because
the position that I'm in does not require
a four-year degree, but some other positions do. MING: People often say, "You need to figure out how
to continually learn throughout your whole lifetime." And obviously, everyone does
need to take some responsibility for their career. But I'll tell you one thing
many workers can't do is take two years to go back
to school and not get paid. They couldn't even afford
to sign up for a six-week job retraining program. As if six weeks of
job retraining would even prepare them for this future
anyways. It is unclear also
who's responsible for upskilling and reskilling. Right now, it is being placed almost entirely on the heads
of workers. - See you later. JESUTHASAN:
How do we give them the space? How do I give them the income? How do I give them
the social support? How do I give them access
to the learning... I'll see you later. JESUTHASAN:
...without the burden of debt? ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: But it's not just
about futureproofing skills. The rules of employment
are also changing. And the consequences are huge. How can workers protect
themselves? RUSSO: Work is being fragmented
in terms of part-time, full-time,
independent contractors, gig work, and all those
new forms of work that are being developed. Part of the people are saying,
"Well, isn't this great? People have more freedom." On the other hand,
I'd like to talk to them after five or ten years to see
where they are economically when they have no health
insurance and no pension. ♪ ♪ GERENA-QUIÑONES: Yeah,
I'm definitely a gig worker. I think it's few and far
in between people that are dedicated to one app. DoorDash, Postmates, Caviar,
Uber. And it's all on one phone, but you're just cycling
through the apps and whatever bites first,
you take it. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR:
The gig economy includes 55 million Americans working
full- or part-time and classified as
independent contractors. They're considered freelancers,
not employees. MING: This gig economy and
contract work now spans out to some of the most
sophisticated, highly university-educated
people. ♪ ♪ HYMAN:
But for many people, the gig economy
is not liberation. It's just survival. It's a way to make ends meet when your regular
job has already failed you. - So you could imagine, like, if you're, if you're doing
deliveries for eight hours, the average... NARRATOR: Platform companies have a growing dominance
in the gig economy. GERENA-QUIÑONES: These companies
have been on the scene for less than a decade with very little supervision from city agencies
or state government. SAIBOU SIDIBÉ:
We fight for all drivers. It doesn't matter
if you're driving Uber, Lyft, Green, Yellow. Since 2002, I was driving
Yellow. And then Uber came. Beginning, it was good. We guaranteed $1,700 weekly
gross income. But 2016, things start
getting really worse. Maybe you do only ten fares
sometime. Or 15 fare, if you're lucky. ♪ ♪ BHAIRAVI DESAI: Driving for
a living used to be considered a fairly decent job. It's part of the
low-wage economy, a predominantly immigrant
economy, in New York City. For immigrant workers,
it was considered one of the higher-earning jobs. And then Uber and Lyft
entered the market. And what's been a full-time job
has slowly, slowly been turned into a gig
where there is no job security. NARRATOR:
In 2015, there were only 7,000 rideshare drivers
in New York City. By early 2020, there were
55,000. SIDIBÉ:
The demand was slow because we have so many cars. And now everybody was looking
for a customer. This company flood the market. ♪ ♪ DESAI: They decide how much
you get to make, which hours you're working,
how many hours you're working, who you pick up,
how much you can charge. Yet these companies claim
that the drivers are not their employees. So the state says, "You don't have to abide
by any labor law as long as you dispatch the work
through an app." The state says, "This worker is
now an independent contractor because all the work is now
being dictated by an algorithm." What would stop
any other company in the economy from starting to use apps
to dispatch their workers? We think it's just a matter
of time before companies like Walmart and Amazon
take on that route. ♪ ♪ REPORTER: California legislature
passes AB5... REPORTER: The so-called
Gig Economy bill... REPORTER: ...force companies
like Uber and Lyft to reclassify their drivers from independent contractors
to employees. (horns honking) NARRATOR: In 2019, gig workers
in California challenged their status as
independent contractors. They demanded the same wages and
benefits guaranteed to employees. (car horn honking,
crowd cheering) NARRATOR: In response, the legislature passed a bill
called AB5 to protect gig workers
from being misclassified. (speaking indistinctly) DESAI: In New York,
we've been fighting for a similar bill that would
establish a universal test for how the agencies and courts
of our state decide on employee status for all workers. NARRATOR: In California, Uber, Lyft, and other platforms poured over $200 million
into a ballot initiative that would exempt
their companies from providing benefits
to their drivers. A year later, they succeeded. DESAI:
The defeat in California, it makes you feel like these
companies just can't be beaten, but on the other hand, that motivates workers
to fight back. HYMAN: There are laws in
different states that want to deal with
this problem of worker misclassification. (speaking indistinctly) HYMAN: The point is that we should be providing
workers' comp and a version of unemployment
insurance and health insurance to everyone, regardless of their
workplace classification. CASS: It's a little bit strange,
when you think about it, that we get our benefits
from our employers. In a lot of cases, it would make
sense to get benefits elsewhere. NARRATOR: One idea gaining
traction among some companies and those who gig for them
is "portable benefits." Might this be a way to
futureproof worker security? CASS: A better solution for the
long term is offering people a benefits package that travels with them
from employer to employer, or just having some other organization out there that
provides your benefits. A union is a great example. And a much better model for gig workers
would be what's called sectoral bargaining, where you
have a single union representing all of the gig workers. Yeah, do you want me to do
labor history? I'm ready, I'm, I'm... This is, this is my jam. ♪ ♪ So we're all nostalgic now
for these factory jobs, but for most of the Industrial
Revolution, factories were a great place
to go if you wanted to be poor or if you wanted to lose an arm. And that all changed
in the 1930s. Certainly, after the
Great Depression, industrial jobs were fantastic
for the people who had them. ♪ ♪ And this all happened because of
the industrial unions, which organized the previously
thought "unorganizable workers" to bring the largest
corporations in the world to heel. And it wasn't done through
lawyers. It was done through
union action. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: But by 1947,
a union's ability to organize was restricted by law. Increasing globalization
and right-to-work laws further eroded the power
of unions. And there were other challenges. Manufacturing jobs
were in decline. Service work,
harder to organize, was on the rise. Then unions suffered
a near-fatal blow. In 1981, the Reagan
administration fired over 11,000 striking air traffic controllers
in a single day. This show of force would cripple
the bargaining power of unions for years to come. At their peak
in the mid-20th century, unions represented
one in every three workers. Today, it's only one in ten. What role, if any,
will unions play in futureproofing benefits
and job security? CASS: One problem is that labor
and organizing haven't changed since the 1930s. The model we have
is built around the 9:00-to-5:00 factory job, and an awful lot of workers
today, they might be temps. They might be in the
gig economy. So gig workers are a great
example of a group that are desperately in need of some
sort of representation, but that could never fit into
a traditional American union. GERENA-QUIÑONES:
I was anxious, not knowing if I was going
to have a great week or a terrible week. It's really hard to plan
your life around those kinds of variations. So I decided I need to get out of that world because it
was making me stressed. ♪ ♪ One of these restaurants
was having such a nightmarish experience
with the same delivery platform that I was
working through for them. We were, like,
"Well, we don't need them. "Let's just work together. Screw the app." So I started my own company. I ended up buying a fleet
of these cargo bikes with my savings. And then I can get guys riding
doing cargo bike work. And it gives them steady,
reliable, scheduled work. ♪ ♪ We are working with restaurants
who want to offload any excess food
prepared throughout the day. And instead of throwing it out, we'll pick it up,
and we'll deliver it to different pantries in the city. ♪ ♪ This identity
of a working cyclist, from here on out, it's just, how
do I use that to have a sense of mission beyond
just paying the bills? It took on a much bigger purpose
that I had never imagined would be the case. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ MING: One of the things
that I'm most afraid of with COVID-19
and our response to it is that an entire generation
of workers will be radically displaced
from an America as we have come to know it. (bell dinging) NARRATOR:
Much of the pandemic's most devastating impact
was in the hospitality industry, where workers were already
underpaid and insecure. In New Orleans,
over 50,000 restaurant and hospitality workers
lost their jobs. ROBERT LEBLANC: The old
restaurant model was untenable. It just didn't work. I think that's almost considered
a universal truth at this point. You're on your feet. You're working with knives
and fire. So you're getting banged up
and injured. People were working
too many hours. It was grueling work,
physically and emotionally. People weren't compensated
nearly well enough. ♪ ♪ After COVID, you know, we basically had to shut the
whole company down. We didn't have enough cash,
with zero revenues coming in. I felt like a huge failure. ROCKY DE'VALL: I've been doing
this around ten years, since I've been an adult. And it's really hard to just go
into other fields when this is what you know. RODOLFO ANTONINO: It's really
scary for a lot of us, because we've invested ten, 11, 12, some 18 years
of our lives developing the skill set that is now
part of this industry. We were told,
"Oh, everyone needs to eat. You'll always have a job
cooking." And now it's, like... (laughing): "Well, will we?" ♪ ♪ LEBLANC: So, after COVID hit, we spent two or three weeks
truly just licking wounds. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR:
Then LeBlanc had an inspiration: to bet the future
on a new business model. LEBLANC:
I started reading about Toyota production systems. I learned a lot about
one-piece flow, lean manufacturing,
or lean processing. NARRATOR: Like the Navy's
minimal staffing, one-piece flow allows LeBlanc to accomplish as much or more
with fewer employees. LEBLANC:
The idea of one-piece flow-- not to oversimplify it--
but the idea is, you don't create a batch
of a hundred, you create one at a time. The idea started to germinate, if we can apply this to restaurants, it might, might
be an interesting solution. In restaurants,
to apply one-piece flow, when you order a menu item
off the food menu, or you order a cocktail, whoever makes that food item
or whoever makes that cocktail is the one who actually
brings it to your table. There's not four people
handling one dish. There's one person handling
a dish. ♪ ♪ We had 150 people in the company
prior to COVID, and we have 65 people
in the company post-COVID. And so this model never allows
for those jobs to come back. The upshot to that, though,
is that now most of these jobs
is truly probably in that middle-class wage. Less positions,
but better-paying positions. ♪ ♪ The idea being that everyone
is kind of cross-trained and can help each other out. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Chloe, LeBlanc +
Smith's new boutique hotel, adopts the same model. (drill whirring) LINDSAY OLIVER: We do not have
to remake the bed at turn down. Unless a guest has asked... We're trying to have an
all-inclusive labor model. Everyone does everything. ♪ ♪ PRODUCER: What are you normally
doing when you're not cleaning rooms? - Server, mostly. A little bit of everything,
though. (chuckles) ♪ ♪ LEBLANC: So the way that we are
compensating people right now is, we are paying them $30,000
a year and health insurance. WOMAN: Try to keep everything
as flat as possible. LEBLANC:
And they have paid sick leave. They have two weeks
paid time off. WOMAN:
Then clockwise... LEBLANC:
And then we split tips evenly. WOMAN:
Awesome. Well done. NARRATOR: Could this approach
help futureproof other businesses
in the hospitality industry? - Hello, good afternoon,
thank you for calling the Chloe. LEBLANC:
There's no way I would go back. We burned the boats,
you know? We're not,
we're not going back. ♪ ♪ This is going to work
or I'll go be a teacher and a high school coach
someplace, hopefully, if I can get a job. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ GERENA-QUIÑONES:
What's up, y'all? This is Diego checking in here. Since I last saw you guys, a lot has changed! (laughs) Man... That just seems like
an entire lifetime ago that you guys were here filming what was then a discussion
around gig workers and the future of work. I was in a different place then. Things really seemed to be
on the up-and-up. There was a lot of new work
opportunities that were developing, and I was ready to get
more bikes, get a bigger space for them,
start recruiting a bigger team. (doorbell buzzing) ♪ ♪ SIDIBÉ: How was it with the
COVID situation and your job? GERENA-QUIÑONES: Back in
February, everything was great. You know? We were getting
more clients, more work. I was about to buy
some more cargo bikes, hire some more riders. Like, everything was looking
really positive in that moment. ♪ ♪ Due to COVID and the pandemic, everything shutting down, people working from home, there's no catering industry
anymore in New York. There's no more in-person
meetings. Corporate office buildings
are ghost towns. And then seeing all the, the
potential money that I'm normally making just...
(blows out) It's, like, holy crap! You know, there's, there's rent, there's student loans,
there's... What if I get sick
and what if I need healthcare? I don't have healthcare,
like, and all of this panic, it's really scary. It's, it's crushing. MAN: What do you want?
CROWD: Justice! SIDIBÉ: For us, also, you know,
the taxi industry, with the city shutdown, was
really terrible for drivers. We have a lot of drivers who were really exposed to this
COVID. ♪ ♪ DESAI: You know, we've seen
the statistics that so many Americans ended up
using the $1,200 stimulus check
to pay for groceries and meals. Gig workers who work with
absolutely no safety net, no security, were already on the edge,
barely making minimum wage. Once the pandemic hit, and the jobs were lost,
and the incomes dried up, people really truly did not know where the next meal
was going to come from. ♪ ♪ GERENA-QUIÑONES: So I've decided
to move to Puerto Rico because my father passed away,
and my mom is out there, and I just want to be close
to her. I've lived here
for my entire life, 35 years, and I'm not convinced
that New York is it anymore. So I want to try my luck
in the tropics. So this might be the right time. I'm taking some of these bikes
with me to Puerto Rico. I want to be the first person
to introduce cargo bikes to the island of Puerto Rico. I will continue to be involved
in the company. Everything's happening remotely
now. So we're discovering that,
you know, via Zoom and conference calls and emails,
you can get a lot done. ♪ ♪ GUTIERREZ:
"Will my job be necessary?" And I think that's
the main concern. "What's going to happen?" "Is my job still there?" "Do I need to go back
to school?" ♪ ♪ MING: If futureproofing or robotproofing a workforce
isn't about teaching them one magical skill,
then what is it? LEE: If I were talking to
a young person, I would first say,
"Don't listen to your parents. What has worked for them
probably won't work for you." AUGUSTE:
We have choices. When we talk about all the risks to people
in the future of work, we really need to be clear
about, what problem are we trying
to solve? If we're trying to solve
the problem of how to use as few people
as we can, and if we fail to use
the new technologies to create new roles for people, that would be catastrophic
for society. ♪ ♪ MING:
The one thing I know for certain is, our best guesses
will be wrong. Invest in people. They will be ready
for this future. And if it's a future that is terrifying
and exhausting because we can't keep these
promises of certainty that a job will be there
for you, what we truly need from everyone is the ability
to explore the unknown. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR:
In the final episode: as workers and communities
wrestle with the unknowns, how are they adapting-- and how are their identities
changing-- in this disrupted landscape? ♪ ♪ For more about "Future of Work":
pbs.org/futureofwork. To order "Future of Work" on
DVD, visit ShopPBS or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS. This series is also available
on Amazon Prime Video. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
