We Are All Gig Workers Now: The Path to Full Labor Rights

We Are All Gig Workers Now:

The Path to Full Labor Rights

Tuesday, October 6, 2026

6:30pm - 8:30pm

Free and open to all.

In-person only:

CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies

25 West 43rd Street, 14th floor - Room 1425, New York, NY 10036 (map)

Click here to register:

slucuny.swoogo.com/6October2026/register

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Join us for a conversation with leading labor figures, academics, and elected officials on the future of gig worker organizing. Hosted in partnership with the Consortium for Worker Education (CWE) and researcher Lina Moe, it follows a piece published in New Labor Forum this spring examining the expanding gig economy and the path to worker power.

The gig economy grew out of the mass worker displacement of the 2009 financial crisis, and has since expanded to cover a growing share of the American workforce, replacing stable jobs with precarious labor severed from the protections of employment. As dynamics within the gig economy continue to shift around the challenges posed by AI and automation, we ask how gig workers can win protections in a system that has thus far excluded them.

This panel will highlight the differing approaches and perspectives worker advocates have adopted on this issue, particularly as it relates to questions surrounding worker classification and bargaining.

Speakers:

Bhairavi Desai - Executive Director, NY Taxi Worker’s Alliance (NYTWA)

Andrea Gordillo - Executive Director, Freelancers Union

James Parrott - Labor Economist, Center for New York City Affairs at The New School

Claire Valdez - New York State Assembly Member, 37th Assembly District

Moderator:

Lina Moe - Research Fellow, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis