Veena Dubal, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, will discuss her work on Uber and the gig economy in conversation with Rutgers University Gloria Steinem Chair Naomi Klein. Focusing on the links between technology and the growing precarity of labor, Dubal and Klein will discuss the radical changes to the nature of work in the neoliberal age and how these trends are being extended and amplified amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Veena Dubal’s research focuses on the intersection of law, technology, and precarious work. Within this broad frame, she uses empirical methodologies and critical theory to understand (1) the impact of digital technologies and emerging legal frameworks on the lives of workers, (2) the co-constitutive influences of law and work on identity, and (3) the role of law and lawyers in solidarity movements. Dubal has been cited by the California Supreme Court, and her scholarship has been published in top-tier law review and peer-reviewed journals, including the California Law Review, Wisconsin Law Review, Berkeley Journal of Empirical and Labor Law, and Perspectives on Politics. Based on over a decade of ethnographic and historical study, Dubal is currently writing a manuscript (Driving Freedom, Navigating Neoliberalism) on how five decades of shifting technologies and emergent regulatory regimes changed the everyday lives and work experiences of ride-hail drivers in San Francisco.
Naomi Klein is the inaugural Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University, and an award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist and international and New York Times bestselling author of, No Is Not Enough: Resisting the New Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need (2017), This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate (2014), The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007) and No Logo (2000). In 2018, she published The Battle for Paradise: Puerto Rico Takes On the Disaster Capitalists (2018) reprinted from her feature article for The Intercept with all royalties donated to Puerto Rican organization juntegente.org. On September 17, 2019, her next book: On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal was published worldwide. It was an instant New York Times bestseller and a #1 Canadian bestseller.
