Dark Clouds - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 174

contract and temporary workers; for example, the Freelancers Union has
signed up 200,000 members in a wide range of jobs, including law, app
and software development, graphic arts, accounting, writing, editing, and
consulting. Worker associations differ from trade unions not just in what
they lack—a system of formal bargaining with employers—but in their
emphasis on mutual assistance outside, as well as within, the workplace.
They follow the social movement tradition of earlier trade unions, which
provided workers with social support, including family assistance, hous-
ing, insurance, and a source of collective power and community. As the
head of the Freelancers Union noted, “The social unionism of the 1920s
had it right. They said: 'We serve workers 360 degrees. It's not just about
their work. It's about their whole life.' We view things the same way”
(Greenhouse 2013).
The dark clouds identiied in this chapter, involving the environment,
privacy, and labor, present major challenges to the future of cloud com-
puting. The next chapter addresses a cloudy forecast of another sort that
takes us into the world of big data and the culture of clouds.