After the completion of the Zhenhuaqiao Gig Market, the number of migrant workers waiting on the roadside every day has been reduced from more than 700 to about 100. Photo by Zhang Zhaorui
Every morning, a group of migrant workers gather under the bridge, on the side of the road, standing or crouching, looking around, waiting for the employer to call, which is a common job search situation for flexible workers, but this situation is gradually changing with the establishment of the gig market.
In the past two years, the city has successively built 19 offline gig markets and 16 online gig market platforms, and more and more migrant workers have walked from the "roadside" to the "market" and even "mobile phones", realizing the employment from "zero" to "spiritual".
With these questions, the reporter went to Zhenhuaqiao Gig Market in Wuqing District, Bincheng Flexible Employment Service Center in Binhai New Area, and Haitang Street Gig Market in Jinnan District for interviews.
Say goodbye to the early morning "standing on the road"
Entering the "big market" of employment
At 8 a.m. on March 22, after dropping off his two children at school, Wang Kewei went to the Zhenhuaqiao Gig Market in Wuqing District to wait for his employer to pick him up to work.
Wang Kewei's hometown is in Handan City, Hebei Province, and he came to Tianjin to work in 2006. At first, he did some installation and electrician chores on the construction site, because he was diligent and had good craftsmanship, and was highly valued by the boss. In 2015, his company's Tianjin project had been delivered, and the boss wanted to take him to other places to continue the project. "But at that time, I had already bought a house in Wuqing, and my children were too young, so I didn't leave. Wang Kewei told reporters that since then, in addition to taking care of the children at home, he has gone to Zhenhua Bridge to find work.
Zhenhua Bridge is located in Yangcun Street, Wuqing District, 20 years ago, because there was a nearby coal yard in need of stevedores, the word of mouth of the migrant workers, spontaneously formed a market for odd workers. While the coal yard has long since moved away, the "street market" in Zhenhuaqiao remains, and at its peak, more than 700 migrant workers gather here every morning.
For "squatting work" on the side of the road, Wang Kewei is very proficient. "You'll have to wait on the side of the road at 6 a.m. at the latest, and slip your car into the side lane. As long as there is a recruiter to drive the car to the side of the road, everyone will hula and surround it. First talk about work, then negotiate the price, and finally the boss chooses a few people, closes the car door and leaves, the whole process takes less than 5 minutes. He told reporters that if he hadn't received his job at 9 a.m., he would have to rest for the day.
"A large number of migrant workers stand on the side of the road in the morning rush hour, which is not only chaotic, but also brings traffic hazards. Lu Tianli, director of Yangcun Street in Wuqing District, told reporters that in November 2022, they joined forces with the Wuqing District Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and other departments to build a gig market using a vacant land less than 50 meters south of Zhenhua Bridge.
Stepping inside the gig market, it feels like a bus stop. In the center of the site is a row of covered seats, lined with driveways that allow employers to drive their cars directly in to recruit workers, and two rows of houses on the periphery of the site are waiting areas, rest areas, supermarkets and canteens, equipped with charging equipment, first aid kits and umbrellas.
After the gig market opened, Wang Kewei immediately registered his personal information and job intentions. Soon after, the marketing staff pulled him into the WeChat job search group, which posted employment needs from time to time. Wang Kewei told reporters: "In this way, you don't have to wait on the side of the road early in the morning, communicate with the employer on your mobile phone a day in advance about the work content and pay, and then wait here at 8 o'clock in the morning." ”
It is not only Wang Kewei who says goodbye to "standing on the road".
Recently, citizen Liu Shuang's new house is about to be bricked, and a friend suggested finding a master on the side of the road, but he was a little uneasy, so he dialed the phone number of Zhao Xuehang, the operator of Zhenhuaqiao Gig Market.
"No problem, we have a Master Li here, you can rest assured of the technology. Zhao Xuehang on the other end of the phone agreed very happily. He told reporters that many enterprises and individuals were originally recruiting odd workers in Zhenhuaqiao, although it seems that there are many choices, but it is difficult to meet suitable workers at once, and it is also common to wait for a few days. After the establishment of the gig market, they set up a file for migrant workers, such as the aforementioned bricklayer Master Li, whose salary is 500 yuan a day, because of his excellent skills and reputation, and now he can't finish the work only introduced by acquaintances.
After the gig market was built, there were far fewer people gathered on the roadside of Zhenhua Bridge to wait for odd jobs, and there are currently only about 100 people a day. "Some of them are new and don't know much about our market, and some employers are still used to parking their cars on the side of the road, and those who recruit workers don't enter, so how can migrant workers come in?" Lu Tianli told reporters that they will increase the publicity of the gig market in the future, continue to explore the government-led, market-oriented operation model, and publish recruitment information online in real time through the online gig platform, quickly match employment needs and job search intentions around the clock, and create a "big market" for gig workers.
Reduce unpaid wages and train skills
The "water cat" was reassured
In January this year, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security issued the Notice on Strengthening the Standardization of the Gig Market, emphasizing that all localities should incorporate the gig market into the construction of the employment public service system, and make overall plans and overall plans. From the perspective of migrant workers, what kind of gig market do they need?
At 8 a.m. on March 29, at the Bincheng Flexible Employment Service Center in Binhai New Area, Wang Wencheng, an electrical maintenance worker, used half an hour of waiting for his employer to teach 58-year-old Shi Youjun how to use the "Water Cat Craftsman" platform. Click on this applet, and you can directly scroll down to browse the recruitment information. If you see what you want to do, just click 'Take Order'. He also reminded Shi Youjun: "After the employer confirms, you must first negotiate the wages and be able to negotiate the price." ”
"In the past, migrant workers in Binhai New Area used to work under the bridge of the Jinbin Expressway extension line at the intersection of Xinbei Road. Yang Zhiyong, founder of Bincheng Flexible Employment Service Center in Binhai New Area, told reporters that his original intention of setting up the market was to find work for these "water cats" (referring to temporary workers waiting on the side of the road to find work). According to him, the center consists of two platforms, online and offline, the online is the "Water Cat Craftsman" recruitment platform, and the offline is the comprehensive service gig market. In his view, to build a gig market, both online and offline platforms are indispensable.
"I don't know if you've noticed before that people who work odd jobs don't work overtime. Yang Changyong, head of the operation of the "Water Cat Craftsman" platform, told reporters that the working hours of odd workers are generally from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., except for one hour of lunch and rest, the daily working hours are generally 9 hours.
"But they have to get up at 4 a.m., and if they work overtime at night, they will delay their money the next day." He told reporters why the gig workers have to stand on the side of the road at 5 o'clock in the morning, because they are afraid that they will be late and have no work. With the online platform, you can contact your work in advance and take more breaks.
In addition to being able to introduce jobs, not owing wages is the biggest expectation of "Water Cat" for the gig market. Chatting about this topic, Wang Wenxin and Shi Youjun also surrounded them. "Why do many people do odd jobs, isn't it because they are afraid of unpaid wages?" Shi Youjun said, he had also worked on the construction site, and said that he would settle the monthly settlement, but when it came to the day of payment, he would be "stuck", and if he didn't do it for a month, he would do it in vain.
But part-time work is not completely immune to unpaid wages. Someone told reporters: "Just say that laying tiles, those who work know that laying floor tiles and wall tiles is not a price, but some employers pretend to be stupid afterwards and only pay at a low price, and you have no rut." Another person said: "I took a job through an intermediary, and the employer later said that he had settled the account with the other party, but the middleman ran away, who should I ask for money?"
Ding Ling, a lawyer at Tianjin Fadai Law Firm, and her colleagues, who have handled thousands of gig rights protection cases in the past few years, told reporters: "There are records of taking jobs on formal platforms, which is the key evidence for rights protection after disputes. ”
It is understood that since the official launch of the "Water Cat Craftsman" platform in March 2022, there are currently more than 600,000 registered workers, the platform releases employment information and provides thousands of jobs every day, and more than 2,000 workers are looking for jobs on the platform every day. Yang Changyong told reporters: "I hope that in the future, more employment companies will recruit workers through our platform, making it easier for 'water cats' to find jobs." ”
But online platforms are not enough for the gig market. Lv Jingwei, deputy director and associate researcher of the Institute of Digital Economy at the Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences, said: "If the gig group wants to increase their income, they still need to rely on skills, and purely online recruitment platforms rarely involve skills training. ”
In the interview, the reporter found that there is a significant difference in the daily salary between different types of work among the gig workers. The daily wage of a labourer is no more than 260 yuan, but the daily wage for electricians and operators starts at 300 yuan, and experienced bricklayers can even reach 500 yuan per day. Many gig market managers believe that the role of offline platforms is not only to provide shelter for migrant workers, but also to provide vocational skills training in order to increase their income.
At present, the construction of the gig market in our city is from both online and offline aspects. The reporter learned from the Employment Department of the Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau that at present, the city has built 19 offline public welfare gig markets, including 2 in Binhai New District, 2 in Jinnan District, 2 in Beichen District, 1 in each of the other 13 districts, and 16 online gig markets. In the first two months of this year, the gig market in various districts provided 32,672 gig jobs, served 29,520 job seekers, and initially reached 12,380 employment intentions.
The relevant person in charge of the Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau said: "This year, we will focus on standardizing the service positioning, service functions, construction layout, operation mode, information analysis, service requirements and strengthening service capacity building of the gig market in accordance with the requirements of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security's "Notice on Strengthening the Standardization of the Gig Market". ”
Serving new employment groups
Expanding the "circle of friends" for employment
Originally, the gig market mainly corresponded to people with low education and low skills, but with the emergence of new forms of employment and new employment methods, workers in the gig market are expanding to knowledge-based and skill-based.
Not long ago, Xiao Wang, a sophomore at Tianjin Electronic Information Vocational and Technical College, wanted to use her spare time to do a part-time job, and she found a marketing job for an exhibition company at the Haitang Street Gig Market in Jinnan District. This position requires her to pay a return visit to customers who have participated in the exhibition through the online platform, record their feedback, with a daily salary of 150 yuan and a construction period of no more than two weeks.
"There are more and more college students like Xiao Wang doing odd jobs. Tong Gaobing, a partner at Tianjin Hongwen Talent Development Co., Ltd., found that compared with finding odd jobs in on-campus forums in the past, college students are now more willing to look for odd jobs through the gig market, because they think it is closer to society. For college students, part-time work is not only to earn some pocket money, but also an opportunity to enter the social "training ground", learn how to communicate with strangers through odd jobs, and how to complete work through teamwork.
Haitang Street in Jinnan District, due to 13 colleges and universities, including Nankai University and Tianjin University, is the "youngest street" in Tianjin. Wang Jian, director of the Haitang Street Party and Mass Service Center, told reporters: "There are not only 150,000 teachers and students in our street, but also more than 40,000 high-quality residents attracted by high-quality educational resources. "Previously, Haitang Street was scattered to publish job search information, but with the establishment of the Haitang Street Gig Market in January this year, they focused on full-time mothers, college students and other new employment workers, set up the service subject in the Party and Mass Service Center, and set up gig stations in various communities to carry out gig job docking activities on a regular basis.
In order to help the diversified scene operation of the gig market, Haitang Street launched the "Xiaotang Assistant" brand project. Online, through the "Xiaotang Assistant" App and applet, employers and individuals can dynamically release information on the demand for gig jobs, and job seekers can search and negotiate in real time online; offline, staff, volunteers, and interns, as the spokespersons of "Xiaotang", communicate face-to-face with job seekers, provide job registration, job matching, policy answers, and employment guidance services, and regularly carry out the activities of "gig jobs into the community and gig jobs into the family", so as to truly deliver gig jobs to residents.
Since its launch in January 2024, the Haitang Street Gig Market has released more than 1,800 gig job information, received more than 1,200 job seekers, accepted more than 300 job registrations, held 4 gig job fairs, attracted 80 companies and 2,000 job seekers to apply, reached more than 600 employment intentions, and promoted more than 200 people to achieve flexible employment.
New careers
Make the work touch screen accessible and the "anchor with the post" warms up
Starting live broadcasts, entering enterprises, and recruiting workers, Tianjin girl Liu Xinyu has been a little busy recently, from the office live broadcast room to the factory operation room, from the corporate canteen to the staff dormitory, she is indispensable everywhere.
Liu Xinyu is a "post-anchor" in a human resources service company in Linggong Economic Industrial Park, Wuqing District, Tianjin, and she talked about a few discounts on goods in the live broadcast room, but specific jobs. After the Spring Festival, many migrant workers began to be busy looking for jobs, and the live broadcast room of the "anchor with a post" also became lively.
"Assembler of air conditioning filter factory, easy work, no noise in the environment, under the age of 45. "The lab recruits male workers, mainly responsible for order entry, which requires fast typing, and the working hours are from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. the next day. "The factory recruits quality inspectors, daily wages, free working meals, and free shuttles. At 10 a.m. every weekday, Liu Xinyu will open a live broadcast, quickly broadcast the latest job information, and answer various questions from "fans" in the background.
"The biggest advantage of 'live streaming' is that it is intuitive, and what you see is what you get. Liu Xinyu told reporters that under the traditional model, recruitment is based on only one mouth, and many migrant workers can't accept the choice to regret when they arrive at the scene, and the employing enterprises are not satisfied.
"But with live streaming, I can stand next to a worker doing his work and live stream his work. She said that each live broadcast attracts about dozens of migrant workers, and they ask a variety of questions. Some people are concerned about whether the working meals are the same every day or not the same every day, and some people are concerned about how many rooms there are in the dormitory and whether there is air conditioning. Don't look at these small problems, but they are often the key to successful recruitment.
In the interview, the reporter learned that "live broadcast with posts", as a new recruitment model, also faces some problems. Many anchors have reported that many live broadcast platforms have set "salary" and "salary" as sensitive words, but these contents are exactly what migrant workers are most concerned about. Many employment enterprises, especially manufacturing enterprises, do not allow anchors to enter the production workshop due to equipment confidentiality and other reasons, which greatly reduces the effect of live broadcasting.
"Now more and more gig workers are beginning to accept the new model of 'live streaming'. Kou Quanhua, general manager of Tianjin Quanxing Labor Service Co., Ltd., told reporters that they are downstairs in the Zhenhuaqiao gig market, and people who come here to find work can scan a QR code to enter the live broadcast room. For industrial parks and employment enterprises, the new model of "live broadcast with posts" not only improves the success rate of recruitment, but also reduces the cost of offline recruitment.
Mobile phones and lively live broadcasts have increased the activity of the job market.
Character stories
Add 10,000 friends on WeChat
Stay-at-home mom becomes "happy mom"
Duan Xiaomeng, who is less than 40 years old this year, is a mother of two children. Because her husband's company is in Tianjin, in 2020, she came from Beijing to Haitang Street, Jinnan District, Tianjin, to take root.
Previously, she worked in the self-media in Beijing for a period of time, although the salary was not high, but fortunately, the work intensity was not large. As the two children reached school age one after another, the elderly on both sides could not help, so she had to choose to "break up" with the workplace.
Having just become a full-time mother, Duan Xiaomeng's biggest feeling is "losing herself". As soon as her husband goes on a business trip, she gets up early to cook for her children, send them to school, and then buy vegetables and go home to do housework. However, the biggest problem is that people are not familiar with the place and there is no one to communicate with. She said: "For a while, I didn't dare to go downstairs, for fear that people would ask, you won't go to work at such a young age?"
On Haitang Street, Duan Xiaomeng is not alone. Wang Jian, director of the Party and Mass Service Center of Haitang Street, told reporters: "Our high-quality educational resources here have attracted many friends from other places to study and settle down, thus forming a considerable number of full-time mothers. ”
In order to help them achieve flexible employment, the Haitang Street Gig Market has set up a special "job for Yiren" window, where full-time mothers can register their job search needs, and Haitang Street matches them according to the needs of surrounding enterprises.
For Duan Xiaomeng, the gig market can not only bring her income and subsidize her family, but also reshape her life and social circle. Participate in community talks, volunteer activities, join sports groups...... With each event, she gets to meet a lot of interesting stay-at-home moms.
"Some people drive Didi in the morning after dropping their children off at school and then collect the cars before their children get out of school, some people use their cooking skills to open a small dining table, and some people become yoga instructors because they love fitness. She found that stay-at-home mothers could also have so many options. She also took every opportunity to expand her network by adding WeChat friends. In less than 3 years, her WeChat friends have reached the upper limit of 10,000.
A few days ago, a resident accidentally dropped his mobile phone into an artificial lake in the street, and Duan Xiaomeng asked for help through a WeChat group. After a while, a stay-at-home mother contacted a diving and salvage company, and in more than half an hour, she fished up her mobile phone.
At the end of the interview, the reporter added Duan Xiaomeng's WeChat, and the WeChat signature was "Happy Mother". There is no doubt that she has rediscovered her own life track here.
Expert opinion
Make up for the shortcomings of the system, and the gig guarantee is not "zero"
——Song Hui, partner of Tianjin Yiqing Law Firm
Building a gig market is an important way to expand employment capacity and improve the job market. With the tremendous changes in the way of doing odd jobs, how to protect the legitimate rights and interests of gig workers in the new form of employment? This reporter interviewed Song Hui, a partner of Tianjin Yiqing Law Firm. She believes that the legal status of gig workers should be more carefully determined, and effective institutional guarantees should be provided in terms of minimum wages, rest and leave, and work-related injury insurance.
In recent years, the gig market has become an important part of the mainland's human resources market, playing an active role in stabilizing employment. In February 2023, the relevant authorities issued the Guidelines for the Conclusion of Labor Contracts and Written Agreements for Workers in New Employment Forms (for Trial Implementation), which clearly defines workers in new employment forms as "workers who accept online tasks such as distribution, travel, transportation, and housekeeping services published by Internet platforms according to user needs, provide online booking services on the platform in accordance with the requirements of the platform, and obtain labor remuneration", and at the same time stipulates that " Based on the facts of employment and the degree of labor management, and taking into account factors such as the degree of autonomy of the workers in the new form of employment in determining the working hours and workload, the degree to which the labor process is subject to management control, whether it is necessary to comply with the relevant work rules, labor discipline, rewards and punishments, the continuity of work, and whether the transaction price can be determined or changed, the enterprise shall conclude a labor contract with the worker in the new form of employment who meets the conditions for establishing an employment relationship, and conclude a written agreement with the worker in the new form of employment who does not fully meet the circumstances for establishing an employment relationship." The above new provisions put forward the standard elements for the definition of labor relations in the new form of employment.
In the next step, how to make up for the shortcomings of the gig market operation system at the practical and operational levels? Song Hui suggested the following three aspects:
First, set an appropriate minimum wage. There is a clear difference between the traditional labor relationship and the labor relationship of the gig economy, and the gig worker and the platform enterprise do not enter into a long-term fixed labor contract, but in many cases establish a short-term, task-based contractual relationship. Due to the dominant position of platform enterprises, an appropriate minimum wage should be set to maintain the basic living conditions of workers in the gig economy and curb malicious low-price competition.
Second, we need to set appropriate working hours and necessary rest and vacation systems. Gig workers' work earnings are linked to the number of hours they work and the amount of work they work, and if they do not impose appropriate restrictions on the number of hours they work, they are likely to be at risk due to excessive working hours. For example, online car-hailing drivers and food delivery workers will cause serious safety risks due to long-term driving, and online anchors will fall ill or die suddenly due to uncontrolled long hours. Therefore, it is necessary to set appropriate working hours and necessary rest and leave systems to avoid tragedies and protect the right to rest and the right to life and health of gig workers.
Finally, a set of special work-related injury insurance norms suitable for workers in the gig economy should be established. Although accidents such as the sudden death of an anchor and the injury of a takeaway boy occur from time to time, according to the current work-related injury insurance regulations, in many cases, gig workers cannot be compensated by work-related injury insurance. Therefore, it has become necessary to re-establish a set of special work-related injury insurance norms suitable for workers in the gig economy, which has become necessary to alleviate the pressure of gig workers who cannot bear the high cost of medical treatment and rehabilitation when they are seriously injured.
(Photo by reporter Zhang Zhaorui, in addition to the signature, the picture is provided by the interviewee)