In April, with commute halted worldwide and earnings plunging, the cofounders of Airbnb raised $2 billion in debt and equity financing. Two weeks later, I turned into once laid off.
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Anna Furman is a Los Angeles-essentially based entirely writer. She covers arts and custom tales for the Unique York Instances, The Guardian, and other publications.
For 13 months, I worked beefy-time as a contract copywriter on a social affect initiative at Airbnb—and sooner than that, for four months on a marketing and marketing and marketing project for the company. My space of job life resembled that of any beefy-time employee: I snacked on charcuterie boards and fresh ahi toddle bowls, rejiggered my calendar to accommodate conflicting meetings, and cheered for workers on their work anniversaries (a odd Silicon Valley ritual that celebrates equity accruing).
Unlike beefy-time workers, contract workers aren’t entitled to Airbnb’s premium health care, generous 401(k), unlimited paid trudge time, transportation coverage, and stock strategies. I turned into once employed by the temp company Skilled Limitless, nonetheless my handiest contact with the company turned into once to file time sheets and to query about gathered sick-day hours.
On April 21, over a sterile one-ability video name, a consultant from Skilled Limitless read from what looked to be a script to point out me and rather a lot of of others that our contracts may per chance presumably well be reduce quick, effective the following week. In a blog put up, Airbnb’s chief executive Brian Chesky claimed that the company would “optimize for 1:1 conversation” regarding layoffs, a unfamiliar promise given that the ratio for talking with contractors turned into all over again luxuriate in 1: 500. For an organization that prides itself on cultivating human connection, Airbnb’s ability to shedding 534 contractors with its accomplice company turned into once remarkably callous. (In Could per chance presumably also just, 300 extra contractors were laid off; employed by agencies luxuriate in California-essentially based entirely catering company Bon Appétit, they stuffed meals, facilities, and security roles.)
Two weeks later, the company laid off 1,900 workers. They received no longer less than 14 weeks severance pay, four months of psychological health give a steal to, and medical health insurance coverage coverage for one year for US workers, as effectively as to receiving equity. Forbes lauded Chesky for giving “a grasp class in empathy and compassion,” and Industrial Insider praised the company’s ability to layoffs as “uniquely generous.” This magnificent coverage failed to reckon with the beefy image of layoffs, which accommodates an invisible team of contractors locked out from having access to those advantages.
After termination, I received one week’s pay, less than 7 percent of what laid off workers were provided. Contractors who opted into medical health insurance coverage coverage from Skilled Limitless saw their plans without lengthen terminated. And pointless to voice, contractors don’t hang stock strategies.
Treasure so many companies in Silicon Valley, Airbnb depends carefully on contract labor—for roles starting from copywriters and photographers to meals preparation, security, and janitorial crew. (Meals carrier jobs at Airbnb’s offices in San Francisco and Portland, in step with a 2018 Gizmodo file, are composed nearly entirely of subcontractors.) In 2019, they worked with more than 30 agencies globally, in step with Christopher Nulty, Airbnb’s head of public coverage. Across the alternate, companies are more and more working with third-occasion agencies to bustle up and simplify the hiring direction of, bringing natty groups of workers on precise now with less threat and in most cases at a lower worth than beefy-time workers. At some tech companies, contract workers comprise more than 50 percent of the team. (Disclosure: WIRED employs long-time period subcontractors for some roles.)
This two-tier labor machine permits companies to boast generous advantages on the one hand and to handle contractors as dispensable labor on the opposite. Even when California’s fresh AB 5 law makes an strive to limit companies’ exhaust of contract labor, while its jurisdiction is being debated, many companies luxuriate in Airbnb hang persisted to pause alternate as in style; when laid off, contractors across Silicon Valley—at companies along with Apple, Facebook, and Google—assuredly face unequal severance packages. Here is especially troubling given that tech contractors are disproportionately of us of shade. (The law moreover applies to movie production, recordsdata publishers, and cleansing companies, amongst other agencies.)
“Airbnb is an organization that positions itself as a label for the of us, of the of us—and then internally, of us are treated luxuriate in 2d-class voters,” says a up to the moment employee, who spoke on the situation of anonymity. “It’s hypocritical.” Extra than a dozen extinct contract workers tell Airbnb turned into once their employer in all the pieces nonetheless name and advantages. Airbnb, no longer Skilled Limitless, assigned me a particular manager, dictated my work time table, clear my rate, and made up our minds when to rent and fire me.
