Collective Bargaining for Data

Throughout history, labor has been exploited. Sometimes the exploitation is brutal and obvious. Other times, a change in perspective is required to notice it. All too often, the change in perspective happens too late, so that the injustice persists for a long time, leaving lasting structural inequalities in its wake.

Today, this is happening in the data economy. The longer we fail to notice its exploitative dynamics, the more power will flow to the people and institutions that have positioned themselves to benefit; and the more profoundly the rest of us will be marginalized from the societies we co-create. Proposals such as the Data Freedom Act (https://www.radicalxchange.org/files/DFA.pdf) seek to make possible collective bargaining for data. This would help address the problem – but first we need to notice it.

SPEAKER Matt Prewitt is the President of the RadicalxChange Foundation, a writer and blockchain advisor, former plaintiff’s side antitrust and consumer class action litigator, and federal law clerk.