Veena Dubal

Veena B. Dubal is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Her research considers labour laws in the lives of precarious workers and the role of public interest law in social change movements. She is an expert on the "gig economy."

Veena B. Dubal
Alma materStanford University
University of California, Berkeley
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Hastings College of the Law
Clayman Institute for Gender Research
ThesisWage Slave or Entrepreneur?: Contesting the Dualism of Legal Worker Identities

Early life and education

Dubal studied international relations and feminist studies at Stanford University and graduated with honours in 2003. She moved to the University of California, Berkeley for her Juris Doctor, which she completed in 2006. While in law school Dubal was a community activist focused on anti-war campaigns. She was as part of the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action.[1] Dubal was a Fulbright Program scholar in India from 2007 to 2008. After graduating, she was a Berkeley Law Foundation Fellow and public interest attorney at the Asian Law Caucus until December 2012. Dubal earned a PhD in Jurisprudence and Social Policy at UC Berkeley in 2014.[2] Her doctoral research used historical and ethnographic methodologies to study San Francisco taxi workers.[3] After earning her PhD she joined the Clayman Institute for Gender Research as a postdoctoral fellow.[4]

Research and career

Dubal was appointed to the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 2015.[5] Her research considers the impact of digital technologies on the lives of their workers, the relationship between law, precarious work and identity and the role of law in solidarity movements.[6] Dubal is a critic of big tech and the rise of harmful artificial intelligence.[7] She has described the transformation of service work following the great recession as Uberisation. She has investigated the taxi economy in San Francisco pre- and post-Uber, and how the everyday experiences of drivers changed with commodification of medallions, the leasing system, and the de-regulation following the legalisation of TNCs.[8]

Dubal, who WIRED magazine called "an unlikely star in the tech world" has called for the regulation of tech companies that promote a gig economy by misclassifying their workers as independent contractors.[9][10][11] She was one of 75 professors across the United States who wrote to the California Legislature to support Assembly Bill 5 and to advocate that gig companies like Uber and Lyft not get a special interest carveout from California employment laws. In September 2019 California passed the law, which codified a California Supreme Court decision.[12][13]

Dubal has also studied and written on the rise of the technology labour movement through organised protests[14][15] and walk outs, such as the Google Walkout and Uber Strike.[16][17]

Dubal has advocated for cities to restrict facial recognition technologies in an effort to minimise citizen surveillance and inappropriate data collection.[18]

She has written for The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times and Slate.[19][20][21]

References
  1. "Day 1: Power to the People – Not Just the President". Fog City Journal. 2009-01-21. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  2. "Ph.D. Program (JSP)". Berkeley Law. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  3. Farivar, Cyrus (2018-07-10). "Bay Area: Join us 7/11 to learn what the law has to say about the gig economy". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  4. University, © Stanford; Stanford; California 94305 (2018-07-09). "Faculty Fellows' Lunch Featuring Clayman Postdocs: Veena Dubal, Jonna Louvrier". The Clayman Institute for Gender Research. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  5. Francisco, UC Hastings Law | San. "Veena Dubal, Associate Professor of Law - UC Hastings". UC Hastings Law | San Francisco. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  6. Francisco, UC Hastings Law | San. "Veena Dubal, Associate Professor of Law - UC Hastings". UC Hastings Law | San Francisco. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  7. "'People fix things. Tech doesn't fix things.'". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  8. "Veena Dubal. Actuarial Labors: Freedom to/at Risk in a Taxi to Uber Economy | UC Berkeley Sociology Department". sociology.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  9. Dubal, Veena (2019-09-19). "Let's follow California's lead and regulate companies like Uber | Veena Dubal". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  10. "State High Court Ruling Could Have Big Impact on 'Gig' Firms". KQED. 2018-05-01. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  11. "AB5: Regulating the Gig Economy is Good for Workers and Democracy | ACS". 2019-09-24. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  12. Conger, Kate; Scheiber, Noam (2019-09-11). "California Bill Makes App-Based Companies Treat Workers as Employees". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  13. California Supreme Court Rules on Gig Workers, retrieved 2019-11-10
  14. Organizing Tech | AI Now 2019 Symposium, retrieved 2019-11-10
  15. Asher-Schapiro, Avi (2019-03-06). "Move Fast and Build Solidarity". ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  16. "How the Google walkout transformed tech workers into activists". Los Angeles Times. 2019-11-06. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  17. Dubal, Veena (2019-05-10). "Uber Was Designed to Isolate Drivers. That's Why the Strike Was a Triumph". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  18. Dubal, Veena (2019-05-30). "San Francisco was right to ban facial recognition. Surveillance is a real danger | Veena Dubal". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  19. "Veena Dubal | The Guardian". the Guardian. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  20. "Op-Ed: The courts decided gig workers are covered by wage and overtime protections. Now their bosses are trying to evade the law". Los Angeles Times. 2018-08-14. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
  21. "Veena Dubal". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
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