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Differences between the two groups of workers.
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The food delivery app business has grown in recent years, with an increasing number of customers and workers on these platforms. Food delivery apps are also an iconic example of the increasing precarity of working conditions. Delivery app workers have mobilised to demand greater stability and regulation, with one of their main demands being to swit...
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... recent months, the situation has changed in important ways among pro-employee organisations and pro self-employed organisations (see Figure 1 for the different positions) Court judgements and the development of legislation have established a new reality in the field of food delivery and courier platforms. ...
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... Relying on solidarity networks forged through organising, as well as communication technologies for planning and coordination (Bulut and Yeşilyurt 2024), these workers have undertaken a range of actions in these spaces to secure concessions from the DLPs by influencing and appealing to the sentiments of sympathetic spectators. These have included physical demonstrations (e.g., overnight sit-ins), rallies, informal protests on the main streets of the city, outside popular restaurants, and company premises (Cant and Woodcock 2020;Chesta, Zamponi, and Caciagli 2019;Dhar and Thuppilikkat 2022;Moares and Betancor Nuez 2022). Wild-cat strike actions that integrate physical and digital pickets through activities such as 'critical mass ride-outs' and 'coordinated log-offs' have also been employed (Joyce, Stuart, and Forde 2023, 23). ...
This systematic review investigates why and how platform workers express voice in a context where institutional and organisational voice mechanisms and representation structures are lacking or absent. Platform workers have been restricted in their ability to formally unionise or collectively bargain, and the presence of a digital intermediary in the form of a platform organisation limits the scope of worker voice. In this paper, we identify and synthesise the motives for voice use by platform workers—namely mutual aid, organising, visibility, and confrontation, and unpack how these are realised through bottom‐up and independent voice channels that may potentially influence multiple stakeholders. The paper's core contribution lies in highlighting how the blurred employment boundaries of platform work structurally render labour power even more indeterminate, informing our conceptualisation of a ‘grassroots voice mechanism’, wherein the social relations of platform work and digital technologies convey worker voice beyond traditional organisational boundaries. We conclude with an agenda to guide future research centred heavily around the dynamics of platform work, the use of novel voice channels, and worker attitudes towards them.
In today’s world, the rapid development of digital technologies and the gig economy has led to the emergence of new forms of employment that significantly change traditional labor relations. The platform economy, based on shortterm contracts and freelance work, has become an important element of the labor market, offering new opportunities for workers, but at the same time presenting them with numerous challenges. The legal status of platform workers remains uncertain in many countries. Platforms often classify their workers as «independent contractors», «economically dependent independent workers» or «self-employed», which allows them to avoid obligations related to labor laws. This leads to legal gaps that jeopardize the social protection of workers on digital platforms. Different approaches to the legal status and social guarantees of workers in different countries create additional complexities in regulation. The issue of legal classification of digital platform workers remains unresolved, affecting their labor rights and social security. The authors consider the challenges that arise in connection with new forms of employment that displace traditional labor relations. The main attention is paid to the legal uncertainty of the status of gig workers, their social protection and the lack of a unified approach to the regulation of this sphere in different EU countries. The article analyzes legislative initiatives and case law in France, Germany, Austria and Spain, where the legal status of platform workers varies from employed to self-employed. Particular attention is paid to recent court decisions that affect the classification of platform workers and their social rights. The study reveals significant differences in the national legislation and judicial practice of different EU countries, which indicates the need to develop a unified European approach to the regulation of new forms of work. The authors emphasize the need to adapt national legislation to the new realities of the labor market, in light of the new EU Directive (Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on improving working conditions in platform work), which aims to ensure the correct classification of employment status and the protection of the rights of gig workers.
In this paper, we extend previous research on platform work and explore how bike couriers act in the context of digital platforms. Digital platforms for food delivery by bike—a bourgeoning and recent phenomenon—represent a special class of platforms for the physical and hazardous nature of the work they mediate. This type of extreme physical platform work creates work conditions different from other platforms for workers; therefore, their responses require particular attention. Extending previous research on platform work, our analysis highlights the existence of a three‐stage response model linking the conditions of extreme physical platform work, their manifestations in the experience of platform workers (unrealized benefits of flexibility, status confusion, lack of human interactions, and communication opaqueness), and their individualized yet nonconfrontational responses to these experiences (trying harder, reaching out, comparing, and de‐careering). We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our study.
While prior research has demonstrated the poor and unpredictable working conditions and ambiguous working arrangements characteristic of platform‐based food delivery, we lack research on the question of how well these workers are informed about essential aspects of their work, including protection of their rights, working time and schedules, and earnings. Comprehensive and transparent information on working conditions at an early stage is indispensable if workers are to be able to make informed decisions on taking up work and, where relevant, investing in equipment and exercising rights linked to a specific job. Drawing on the multi‐dimensional job quality literature, this article focuses on digital labour platforms in the food delivery sector across four countries: Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. We exploit firm‐level variations, including with regard to the types of work arrangements used and the application—or not—of collective agreements. We draw on information provided to riders during the application process prior to the start of employment, including via websites and FAQs, as well as scrutiny of contracts, service agreements and collective bargaining agreements, where relevant. This information is complemented with interviews with trade union representatives. Our findings point to the relationship between a firm's choice of employment status and form of contract, on one hand, and the predictability and transparency of information provided to workers, on the other. Differences and similarities in such information seem to be more strongly bound to firm‐level decisions than to the welfare and industrial relations regimes in which the platform companies operate.
There has been considerable discussion regarding the regulation of platform-mediated forms of work, yet less attention has been paid to the actual impact of regulations already enacted. In this brief analysis, I examine the cases of Spain and Chile, policy benchmarks in their respective regions. While Spain has introduced a presumption of employment, Chile’s legislation leaves this point open but implicitly encourages classifying workers as self-employed. Nevertheless, both countries have encountered significant complications in implementing these laws, stemming either from the narrow scope of the legislation or from corporate strategies aimed at circumventing it, leading to ever more fragmented and prolonged regulatory battles. Looking ahead, trade unions and workers’ organisations should engage more strategically in the regulatory conflict, considering the enforcement problems emerging and, more importantly, preventing regulation from concealing the radical potential of these movements against precarious work more generally.
Faced with platforms such as Uber, riders are resisting individually and organising actions such as Riders X Derechos in Spain. Some of these ‘new proletarians’ have even organised themselves into cooperatives. To the global utopia of investor-owned platforms, platform cooperativism opposes the utopia of delivery without exploitation or carbon emissions through local cooperatives owned by riders. Based on the case study of the Mensakas cooperative in Barcelona, this ethnography analyses the link between riders’ protests and cooperative platforms. It questions the concrete effects of ‘counter-platform politics’ and the relationship between politics and labour. It also examines the strategies of intercooperation in the ‘cyclelogistical’ sector to understand the institutional, social, and political conditions that foster the ‘re-embeddedness’ of the bike delivery market.
Este artículo analiza si en el capitalismo de plataformas es factible consolidar una alternativa fundada sobre la resistencia creativa. Para ello hemos estudiado el sector del reparto de comidas a domicilio y analizado comparativamente dos cooperativas españolas, Zámpate y Mensakas, sobre la base de la citada fórmula de resistencia. Metodológicamente hemos realizado diez entrevistas a informantes claves, junto al análisis de sus páginas web corporativas y de la literatura vinculada. Como conclusiones anticipadas, resaltamos la existencia de una alternativa viable en términos teóricos y también organizativos, si bien apoyadas sobre fórmulas gerenciales participativas que provocan ciertos lastres organizativos. También señalamos su intento por salvaguardar los derechos laborales y salariales, de los que no pueden evitarse la presencia de cierta autoexploración típicas del capitalismo en estas iniciativas sociales y empresariales. Por último, observamos la existencia de dificultadas en un entorno de fuerte competencia en el que existen numerosas contrariedades a la hora de conseguir cierta estabilidad financiera que haga viable el proyecto a medio y largo plazo, lo que se acompaña de cierta crítica a la escasez de ayudas públicas para este tipo de iniciativas.
