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After a Global Platform Leaves: Understanding the Heterogeneity of Gig Workers through Capital Mobility
Abstract
We know a great deal about global capital mobility in traditional industries, such as manufacturing, but very little about emerging capital mobility in the gig economy. Using the case of Canadian Foodora, a multinational platform that left Canada in 2020, I situate global capital mobility in the local labour market. Drawing upon interview data with former Foodora couriers and ethnographic data collected from a gig workers’ union, I investigate the social, economic and political subjectivities of gig workers activated by a global platform’s capital mobility. My findings reveal unexpected parallel effects caused by capital mobility in the gig economy and traditional industries. My research highlights how heterogeneity is salient for understanding divergent worker subjectivities. The economic and social impacts upon financially dependent gig workers and the emotional connections of devoted and organized gig workers challenge the dominant discourse that gig workers are simply part-timers and hence free from work commitments.
... Scholars have called for an increased investigation into the heterogeneity among workers across different forms of platform work, specifically microwork (Eurofound, 2018;Schor et al., 2020;Vallas and Schor, 2020). This is important as neglecting this heterogeneity may lead to the misspecification of the lived experiences of microworkers (Vallas and Schor, 2020) and inadequate understandings of divergent worker subjectivities (Lee, 2021). Explicitly, this study combines diversity indicatorsage, gender, education, citizenship (Berg et al., 2018;Chen et al., 2019) and dependency indicatorsexperience, personal income earned from microwork, and number of hours per week spent on microwork (Berg et al., 2018;Piasna and Drahokoupil, 2019;Schor et al., 2020) identified in earlier work. ...
... These categorizations form an important foundation for understanding heterogeneity among platform workers. Lee (2021) highlighted that 'heterogeneity is salient for understanding divergent worker subjectivities' (p. 1). For instance, economic and social impacts upon workers that are more financially dependent on gig work may be more severe or present greater anticipated work commitments than formally required or implied in microwork (Lee, 2021). ...
... Lee (2021) highlighted that 'heterogeneity is salient for understanding divergent worker subjectivities' (p. 1). For instance, economic and social impacts upon workers that are more financially dependent on gig work may be more severe or present greater anticipated work commitments than formally required or implied in microwork (Lee, 2021). Examples of classification efforts include the works of Gray and Suri (2019) and Joyce et al. (2020), both of which discuss specifically the form of crowdwork known as 'microwork'. ...
The global expansion of the platform economy raised questions about where and by whom different forms of platform work are performed in Europe. This study focuses on microworking – that is, where an anonymous ‘crowd’ completes piecemeal digital work. Specifically, we address two questions about microworking in the EU-27: Where is microworking performed? Who is performing it? Based on the geolocation of 5,239 workers active on six prominent microworking platforms, we identify variation in the relative prevalence of microworking across the EU. Furthermore, we build on existing research to provide a more granular understanding of different classes of microworkers, in terms of diversity and (income) dependency. Four distinct classes of microworkers emerge through statistical modelling of eight relevant diversity and dependency indicators: age, gender, education, citizenship, experience, hours per week, personal income earned, household income. We label these classes Explorers, Enthusiasts, Supplementers, and Dependents. The identification of these emergent classes and varied prevalence of microworking across the EU, suggest the importance of heterogeneity to both the future study and regulation of microwork.
... As noted by Schor et al. (2020), workers' lack of dependence, or independence, may come with negative effects of uncertainty, desperation, and risk to platform workers, especially those with lower skill levels. Moreover, for many workers who have limited access to "traditional" jobs due to migration status, language skills, or lived experience with a disability, dependence on platform work may be a better alternative to unemployment or other types of precarious work (Kalleberg and Dunn, 2016;Lee, 2023;Van Doorn et al., 2022). Although these platform workers are dependent on platform earnings, we predict that they appreciate this as a "less bad" alternative than precarious forms of informal work or jobs underpinned by a standard employment relationship that offer less flexibility and possibilities to turn down inconvenient tasks. ...
... Further, some workers who are currently estranged from traditional labor markets and therefore dependent on platform earnings may see platform work as a steppingstone to regular jobs (Bucher et al., 2024). This means that they may regard being dependent on platform work as desirable (at least for a while) and thus as a type of support coming from the platform firm when other job alternative prove less desirable in the interim (Lee, 2023). This type of platform-enabled support is what workers reciprocate by Personnel Review showing high(er) levels of affective commitment to the platform. ...
Purpose
The current study examines the relationship between platform workers’ economic dependence on platform work and work satisfaction in the context of algorithmic management.
Design/methodology/approach
We surveyed 1,094 platform workers on 6 online labor platforms in the Netherlands to evaluate their perceived economic dependence and levels of work satisfaction.
Findings
We find that the relationship between economic dependence and work satisfaction in an online labor platform environment is dual in nature. This depends on the type of mediator that is at play. We find that economic dependence and work satisfaction are negatively related when mediated by work autonomy, yet positively related when mediated by affective commitment. Moreover, the negative relationship between economic dependence and work satisfaction is attenuated when workers perceive that online labor platforms use algorithmic management in the form of online review systems to help them improve and perform more effectively.
Originality/value
This study sheds new light on the positive impact of platform workers’ economic dependence and platforms’ usage of online review systems on workers’ experience alongside their downsides that are (more) extensively reported on in the literature.
... In Seattle, the Independent Contractor Protections Ordi- Labor Relations Act (Dubal, 2022;Estlund & Liebman, 2021;Garden, 2017;Racabi, 2021). In Canada, where the (Gebert, 2021;Gray et al., 2022;Lee, 2021Lee, , 2024. Mainstream trade unions are sometimes involved from the initial organizing of a core group of workers, as the creation of the IDG in New York and the organizing cases by the NYTWA and the Seattle-based local union of the Teamsters (Estlund & Liebman, 2021;Garden, 2017;Johnston & Land-Kazlauskas, 2019). ...
... Mainstream trade unions are sometimes involved from the initial organizing of a core group of workers, as the creation of the IDG in New York and the organizing cases by the NYTWA and the Seattle-based local union of the Teamsters (Estlund & Liebman, 2021;Garden, 2017;Johnston & Land-Kazlauskas, 2019). Otherwise, they offer support to self-organized platform workers at the stage of expansion and formalization, illustrated by the Foodsters United campaign and the creation of the GWU in Ontario (Gebert, 2021;Gray et al., 2022;Lee, 2021Lee, , 2024 or when it comes to the large-scale political intervention, as the support offered in California by the SEIU (Estlund & Liebman, 2021;Gobel, 2022). ...
Distinctive features of the on‐demand work platforms made it theoretically improbable for workers to organize and for collective forms of protest to emerge. Their business model and work arrangements spatially isolate and socially individualize workers, subjectivizing them as competing micro‐enterprises rather than co‐workers. However, faced with the flood of the platforms on a global scale, collective actions of platform workers surged like a backwash, especially in the ride‐hailing and food delivery sectors, during the last decade. Observers witnessed a great variety in the combination of actors involved and repertoire of actions mobilized worldwide. Despite this diversity, some common global trends can be sketched out. Through a literature review focused on Europe, Latin America, North America and Asia, this article shows that workers struggle globally to build a collective actor, through an original combination of new and old forms of protest. They ought to compensate for their weak marketplace bargaining power by leveraging their discursive, associational, coalitional and workplace bargaining powers.
... A second category is made up of people who combine delivery work with another job and work to supplement their income. Full-time couriers, with no other (paid or non-paid) activity and who therefore rely on platform work for their livelihood, make up the third category [37]. Although this issue is only beginning to be documented, the distribution of these three categories (students, people with no other activity and full-time couriers) seems to vary across cities [2,5,19,58,60] and over time [2], as does also the proportion of migrants [36,64]. ...
... While couriers value the flexibility and freedom offered by platform work, they also report unpredictable and difficult working conditions, especially long working hours, low earnings, and algorithmic control by the platforms, which control not only orders but also space [12,17,28,46,62]. These working conditions create insecure situations [25], especially for people who are dependent on platform income to pay basic expenses, compared with those working to supplement their earnings [37,51]. As a result, platform-based delivery work is characterized by high personnel turnover rates [31]. ...
Background
Platform-based fast delivery is developing rapidly in many cities across the world, especially in the food sector. Yet knowledge about the characteristics and the activity patterns of delivery couriers is scarce, especially in terms of their mobility behavior.
Methodology
Based on two questionnaire surveys conducted in 2020 and 2021 with 300 and 500 couriers respectively, this article analyses the profiles, motivations and mobility patterns of couriers working in Paris (France), with a focus on the impacts of the pandemic.
Results
First, the analysis of the profiles and motivations of couriers reveals that platform-based delivery is largely a temporary activity performed by young males of foreign origin, and undertaken as a student job or an entry to the labor market. Second, data on mobility patterns confirm that platform-based delivery is a dangerous activity with a high risk of road accidents. Moreover, many couriers break the law in order to increase their income by using motorized two-wheelers that are not legally permitted in France. We also show the use of shared bikes, which seems to be a great support tool for couriers who are starting work in this sector or have a problem with their own bikes. Third, the pandemic prompted many students to become platform-based delivery couriers in order to compensate for the lack of student jobs. It also worsened the working conditions of the majority of platform-based couriers. These findings raise new urban policy challenges and also new avenues for research in terms of topics and methods.
... The platform ecosystem also prevents workers from accessing their fundamental right to organize a union. The organizing practices of trade unions are not effective for gig workers, who are a heterogeneous and individual group of workers (Lee, 2023) in terms of the political and legal dimensions of their conditions. The need to regulate the political and legal aspects of this situation makes the relations between gig workers and trade unions uncertain (Kresal, 2022). ...
Digital platforms are transforming the world of work. However, platforms operating in similar fields of activity encounter varying mechanisms of opposition, as a result of different degrees of professional institutionalization and their relations with the state. This study examines the diversified labor/capital struggle processes on platforms operating at different points of urban mobility in Istanbul and makes an evaluation between delivery and transportation platforms. Therefore, the actions of workers against digital platforms, news reports and public statements of relevant actors in both fields were systematically analyzed. As a result of the study, it is seen that the labor struggle in delivery services includes demands for the regulation of work in parallel with traditional working class reflexes. On the other hand, the resistance in the urban transport platforms is formed in the center of the rent and turns into an institutional struggle as a result of the public activity of the actors. Thus, the inter-class struggle in delivery services operating on digital platforms transforms into an intra-class rent-sharing struggle in urban transport.
... This phenomenon continues with the increasing informalisation of jobs, with flexible labour laws being relaxed and skipped to attract investment to boost the economy (Hammer & Ness, 2021). Work precarity can affect the sole breadwinners of the family who are working on gig platforms as fulltime workers more than part-time workers who are supplementing their income with a few hours of work every day (Schor et al., 2020;Lee, 2021). ...
Background: India is experiencing substantial growth in the digital platform economy, where companies utilize online platforms, portals, and mobile applications to match workers with tasks. These platforms use algorithms to assign piece-rate jobs to workers who are denoted as independent partners/contractors. Platforms which mediate work through digital means include Zomato, Uber, Zepto etc. The digital economy, which saw a substantial surge after the COVID-19 pandemic, encompasses the platform economy as one of its key components. Aims: The article aims to provide a concise overview of the location-based platform economy in India and explain its impact on the lives of workers in this work arrangement. Methodology: The researchers conducted a comprehensive narrative review, drawing insights from peer-reviewed articles, government reports, and their own field research in Kochi, Kerala and Bangalore, Karnataka. Results: Results include a detailed table depicting key details of major platform aggregators in India and two case studies that shed light on digital platform workers' motivations, challenges and incentives. Conclusion: Extensive conceptual and empirical research across various social science disciplines is essential for effectively comprehending and regulating the platform economy. Given the profound impact of the platform economy, it is crucial to ground policy and regulation in rigorous social science research. This will benefit all stakeholders in the platform economy, including platform aggregators, service providers (delivery partners, rider partners, etc.), government officials, and end customers, ensuring a fair and equitable environment for all.
... For instance, one year after its launch, the original Munich-based Foodora became a subsidiary in 2015, being active in seven European countries today after the platform announced it would end activities in Denmark in May 2024. Notably, the activities of Foodora ceased in Canada in 2020 after the Ontario Labour Relations Board ruled that couriers have 'dependent contractor' status(Gebert 2021;Lee 2023). In 2022, DH acquired the Catalan-based operator Glovo, founded in 2015, which currently operates across 25 markets in Africa, Asia and Europe; the platform left Slovenia in May 2024. ...
App-based food delivery platforms risk hubris in their high-flying promises on business performance. As loss-making platforms, they can still count on (venture) capital investors keeping them alive, but the question is to what extent the latter will remain patient over the losses. Based on a scrutiny of business reports in conjunction with secondary research, this ETUI Working Paper maps and comparatively analyses three international operating platforms – Delivery Hero, as one of the largest platforms; Just Eat Takeaway; and the much smaller Deliveroo. In respect of each one of these, food delivery service has an almost inevitable embeddedness in urban economies today. Platforms’ business model is partly based on network effects, meaning that the value of the food delivery service increases when more restaurants are offering food, more couriers are engaged in the delivery job and more customers are using the service. Those network effects are vulnerable as they can be challenged by courier associations and trade unions. Furthermore, platforms are under-delivering by traditional business benchmarks and they are unprofitable up to now, although performance indicators show progress over time. Funding from shareholder equity or debt financing is nevertheless still vital in today’s changed investment climate.
... Diğer bir tartışmalı alan ise platform çalışanların bireyselleştirilmiş ve izole edilmiş bir sistemde gig işleri gerçekleştiriyor olmalarından dolayı (Schou ve Bucher, 2022), ortak çıkarları çerçevesinde, birlikte hareket edebilme kabiliyetlerinin azalmasıdır. Bu durum çalışanları sendikal örgütlenme gibi temel bir haktan mahrum bırakmakla birlikte, sendikaların örgütlenme pratikleri de platform çalışanlar açısından etkili olmamaktadır (Joyce vd., 2023;Lee, 2023). Bu perspektifte platform çalışma; belirsiz, istikrarsız, güvensiz, çalışanların işin risklerini üstlendiği ve sınırlı yasal korumalar aldığı işler olarak ifade edilmektedir (Kalleberg ve Vallas, 2017). ...
In today's world shaped by technological breakthroughs, digital businesses referred as "platforms" are globally widespread with the rapid growth of the digital ecosystem centered on information and data. Platforms are rapidly growing within the global economy, creating a new ecosystem known as the platform economy. The rise of the platform economy brings new ways of work. One of these forms of work is called as platform work. Platform work is a form of work where job processes take place on an online system between the platform, the customer/business and the employee. Platforms enable people to participate in economic activities in different ways (e.g. professional tasks such as software development or graphic design; transportation tasks such as transporting people or delivering food), and thus represent a form of work that takes place in terms of completing task rather than working a full-time job. In this way, platform work differs from traditional forms of work and affects employees and businesses in many ways. While the rise of platforms is changing the nature of work and forms of employment, digital capitalism is also revealing its dark side. Although platforms emphasize a freelance work process, it represents dependent and hierarchical forms of job contract, and also rights of employee’ are excluded. According to research, the workforce are weaker in the platforms and the platform work effects on equalizing wage at the base. At the same time, it is argued that platforms create deeper levels of precarity than traditional precarious work. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the importance and impact of the concept of platform work in the literature. In this context, bibliometric analysis was used to map the evolution and mapping of research on platform work. Thus, it is aimed to provide a systematic summary of the literature on the subject, to identify the relevant research on the subject and to identify the researches conducted in the field of industrial relations, especially in the field of platform work, and to make suggestions for future studies. In the analysis phase, the keywords "platform work" and "platform working" were used in the Web of Science database according to the inclusion and exclusion filtering options. It was determined that the studies started in 2014 and there were 236 research articles in total within the scope of articles published in journals indexed in SSCI (Social Science Citation Index), ESCI (Emerging Source Citation Index), SCI-Expanded (Science Citation Index Expanded). It is found that the majority of the studies are relevant with the field of industrial relations (79). According to the appearance of the journals in which the publications on platform work were published, it was determined that some of them were indexed in the SSCI. It was found that the countries with the highest number of publications on platform work are the UK (44 publications, 404 citations) and Belgium (23 publications, 166 citations), respectively. In Turkey, 4 studies in the Web of Science database were included with a total of 12 citations. Antonio Alosi and Valerio De Stefano were found to be the most prolific authors on the subject. A total of 745 keywords were used in 236 articles in the data set. With the analysis process, results were obtained based on 36 keywords used 5 or more times in the studies for data set. According to the common-word analysis conducted for these criteria, the most frequently used keywords are platform work (114), Gig economy (54), collective bargaining (14), trade union (10), precarity(9), Atypical jobs (8) and employment relations (6). The most cited author on platform work with 358 citations is Vallas' (2020) "What Do Platforms Do? Understanding the Gig Economy" by Vallas (2020). According to the content of the cited articles and the results of the common keyword analysis; Gig economy, conditions of platform work, collective bargaining and trade unions, precarity in the platform economy were prioritized. Since the literature about platform work is a newly developing area, it is thought that it would be important to focus on macro issues as well as issues that have an individual impact on employees in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the research on the subject. In addition, there is a few number of research on platform work in the Web of Science category in Turkey, so the studies may examine the potential gap in this field. In this research, it is suggested that research may focus on the relations between platform work and job insecurity, work-life balance, employability, and work processes which will positive and negative effects on employees and organizations.
... In particular, they found that workers with higher platform dependence are less likely to take advantage of the temporal flexibility of platform work. Similarly, Lee (2023) found that food-delivery workers' reactions to the exit of the Foodora platform from the Canadian food-delivery market varied according to their level of dependence on platform income. Also, the author found that workers' dependence on the platform is positively correlated with their attitudes towards unionisation. ...
This article examines the issue of heterogeneity in relation to workers' representation within digital platforms. Specifically, the research analyses the regulatory process that took place within the food-delivery sector in Italy, investigating how the heterogeneity of couriers is reflected in the Just Eat Takeaway agreement signed in 2021. The novel contribution of this paper is to relate two perspectives – those of workers and unions – that have rarely been considered together in the literature on digital labour platforms. Based on extensive qualitative research in Milan, the heterogeneity of riders is synthesized into a threefold typology identified by three metaphors: the explorer, the entrepreneur and the labourer. It is argued that the introduction of a standard employment contract has led to an increase in workers’ rights and social protection. However, the current form of the agreement favours less vulnerable riders – the explorer – at the expense of those who are more numerous and dependent on platform income – the entrepreneur and the labourer. We conclude that this agreement can be interpreted mainly as a means for trade unions to legitimise their institutional role in the socio-economic arena and strengthen their power resources for future negotiations.
... I have limited my focus to food delivery and cleaning (domestic and commercial), two types of service work often outsourced to precarious migrant workers. However, gig work done via one type of platform does not exclude work done via other platforms or other types of work in general, as multi-apping and the combining of distinct types of work are frequent practices (Lee, 2023). Metropolitan areas are core sites of the platform economy due to their networked character and large migrant populations. ...
The literature on digital labor platforms requires a focus beyond techno-utopianism, foregrounding the role of living labor that materially sustains the fantasies of convenience ingrained in platform capitalism. The gig workers embodying living labor exhausted by location-dependent platform work are mainly migrants. Yet, greater understanding of the complexity of difference production and the gigification of work is needed. The article is prompted by the desire to understand the relationship between entrepreneurialized workers and heterogeneously produced differences within the labor power composition of gig workers active on location-based labor platforms. Drawing on ethnographic data produced together with migrant workers engaged in food delivery and cleaning gigs via labor platforms in Helsinki, the article first analyzes the organizing logic of gig work mediated via platforms through the notion of transversal entrepreneurial tendency, and second, the entwined forms of social, legal, and algorithmic difference produced among gig workers. The article argues that differentiation in labor power composition is dynamically related to the interactions required and facilitated by the platforms. The article contributes to discussions on entrepreneurialization in the contemporary world of work and the specific ways in which the social, legal, and algorithmic production of difference shape the constitutive hierarchies of platform labor.
... Prior research shows that there is wide variation in what sex workers earn [12,43,44] (see also S4 Appendix). Other types of informal workers frequently do not require their informal income to survive [46,47] and this may be true for many sex workers. The demographic patterns described in this study lend support for the view, also extensively reported in the literature, that Canadian sex workers exercise a substantial degree of agency in how they engage with the industry even in the face of structural obstacles [16,18,20,[48][49][50][51]. ...
Background
Most sex worker population studies measure population at discrete points in time and very few studies have been done in industrialized democracies. The purpose of this study is to consider how time affects the population dynamics of contact sex workers in Canada using publicly available internet advertising data collected over multiple years.
Methods
3.6 million web pages were collected from advertising sites used by contact sex workers between November, 2014 and December, 2016 inclusive. Contacts were extracted from ads and used to identify advertisers. First names were used to estimate the number of workers represented by an advertiser. Counts of advertisers and names were adjusted for missing data and overcounting. Two approaches for correcting overcounts are compared. Population estimates were generated weekly, monthly and for the two year period. The length of time advertisers were active was also estimated. Estimates are also compared with related research.
Results
Canadian sex workers typically advertised individually or in small collectives (median name count 1, IQR 1–2, average 1.8, SD 4.4). Advertisers were active for a mean of 73.3 days (SD 151.8, median 14, IQR 1–58). Advertisers were at least 83.5% female. Respectively the scaled weekly, monthly, and biannual estimates for female sex workers represented 0.2%, 0.3% and 2% of the 2016 Canadian female 20–49 population. White advertisers were the most predominant ethnic group (53%).
Conclusions
Sex work in Canada is a more pervasive phenomenon than indicated by spot estimates and the length of the data collection period is an important variable. Non-random samples used in qualitative research in Canada likely do not reflect the larger sex worker population represented in advertising. The overall brevity of advertising activity suggests that workers typically exercise agency, reflecting the findings of other Canadian research.
... Prior research shows that there is wide variation in what sex workers earn [12,43,44] (see also Appendix D). Other types of informal workers frequently do not require their informal income to survive [46,47] and this may be true for many sex workers. The demographic patterns described in this study lend support for the view, also extensively reported in the literature, that Canadian sex workers exercise a substantial degree of agency in how they engage with the industry even in the face of structural obstacles [16,18,20,[48][49][50][51]. ...
Background: Most sex worker population studies measure population at discrete points in time and very few studies have been done in industrialized democracies. The purpose of this study is to consider how time affects the population dynamics of contact sex workers in Canada using publicly available internet advertising data collected over multiple years.
Methods: 3.6 million web pages were collected from advertising sites used by contact sex workers between November, 2014 and December, 2016 inclusive. Contacts were extracted from ads and used to identify advertisers. First names were used to estimate the number of workers represented by an advertiser. Counts of advertisers and names were adjusted for missing data and overcounting. Two approaches for correcting overcounts are compared. Population estimates were generated weekly, monthly and for the two year period. The length of time advertisers were active was also estimated. Estimates are also compared with related research.
Results: Canadian sex workers typically advertised individually or in small collectives (median name count 1, IQR 1-2, average 1.8, SD 4.4). Advertisers were active for a mean of 73.3 days (SD 151.8, median 14, IQR 1-58). Advertisers were at least 83.5% female. Respectively the scaled weekly, monthly, and biannual estimates for female sex workers represented 0.2%, 0.3% and 2% of the 2016 Canadian female 20-49 population. White advertisers were the most predominant ethnic group (53%).
Conclusions: Sex work in Canada is a more pervasive phenomenon than indicated by spot estimates and the length of the data collection period is an important variable. Non-random samples used in qualitative research in Canada likely do not reflect the larger sex worker population represented in advertising. The overall brevity of advertising activity suggests that workers typically exercise agency, reflecting the findings of other Canadian research.
This article delves into the process of technological adaptation to local environments by presenting the case of food delivery platforms in Mexico City. Primarily, it focuses on the tension between design and local economic practices. Given the primacy of cash as an object of economic exchange, platforms facilitate cash payments. Platforms then delegate the task of cash administration to couriers. Labor control around this task is then institutionalized in the form of platform features. Furthermore, platform dependency to cover basic necessities shapes divergent experiences of the delegated task of cash administration. Conceptually, this article employs the Latourian concept of delegation to explore the human and nonhuman enrollments mobilized to adapt digital technologies to local environments.
Studies indicate that gig workers, one of the leading groups revitalizing labor movements globally, have organized by diverging from traditional union strategies. How do they achieve this in diverse local contexts? Drawing on 21 months of international ethnographic fieldwork with gig workers’ unions in Seoul and Toronto, this article examines how and why these two unions develop different strategies for addressing critical crises. Comparative analysis reveals that while the shared labor process and the multinational parent company drive the unions toward new unionism, different worker subjectivities are emphasized by each union based on specific axes of oppression: working-class citizen men in Seoul and racialized immigrants in Toronto. These union orientations are linked to the unions’ distinct histories, including the biographies of founding members. My argument is twofold. First, to better understand rising gig workers’ organizing efforts around the globe, we must consider both global and local contexts. While gig labor processes push gig workers’ unions to move away from traditional union tactics, two key local factors—the workforce’s demographic makeup and union histories—shape their divergent models. Second, it is critical to understand the process of cultivating solidarity—not only building solidarity itself but also deciding which groups to be in solidarity within the local context.
The rapid advancement of technology has been accompanied by a digital revolution that is redefining work dynamics across the globe, with India at
Purpose
This paper aims to provide a critical reflection on the impact of the gig economy on the hospitality workforce. The impact of the gig economy on hospitality workforce management is explored, with the paper delving into both theoretical insights and practical implications.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper offers reflections on the emerging trend of the gig economy and its impacts on the hospitality workforce, based on evidence collected from the selected literature, industry report and authors’ personal reflections. A micro-meso-macro analytical framework was also applied to assist authors in building the arguments and propositions.
Findings
The findings not only revealed the impacts of the gig economy on the hospitality workforce at micro-meso-macro levels but also underscored its close relationships with various concepts in the hospitality management literature. Both future research directions and practical implications are provided.
Practical implications
Amid the gig economy’s transformative influence, stakeholders must continually innovate for an empowering and secure work environment. A holistic approach is necessary to establish a harmonious gig ecosystem, ensuring fair treatment, benefits and protection for workers while fostering growth and well-being.
Originality/value
Throughout the paper, a critical reflection on the impact of the gig economy on the hospitality workforce is presented, along with suggestions for coping with current labor issues in hospitality and tourism. Future research directions are outlined.
The gig economy in Africa presents a complex landscape, offering flexible work opportunities while exposing workers to precarious conditions. This chapter explores the integration of Ubuntu philosophy into the gig economy to address precarity and vulnerability. Ubuntu's principles of interconnectedness, empathy and shared well-being offer a transformative framework for reshaping the gig economy, ensuring the dignity and sustained livelihood of gig workers. Through illustrative and imaginative practice, this chapter theorises a model that we term an “Ubuntu Gig-Hub” constituted by cooperative gig platforms, worker guilds, skill exchange networks, mutual aid funds and community-driven review systems. By embracing Ubuntu-inspired model and practices, for example, in the domestic gig work sector, the chapter offers an example of how the gig economy can evolve into a more inclusive and humanistic space, redefining work dynamics and fostering resilient communities.
The rapid growth of Uber and analogous platform companies has led to considerable scholarly interest in the phenomenon of platform labor. Scholars have taken two main approaches to explaining outcomes for platform work—precarity, which focuses on employment classification and insecure labor, and technological control via algorithms. Both predict that workers will have relatively common experiences. On the basis of 112 in-depth interviews with workers on seven platforms (Airbnb, TaskRabbit, Turo, Uber, Lyft, Postmates, and Favor) we find heterogeneity of experiences across and within platforms. We argue that because platform labor is weakly institutionalized, worker satisfaction, autonomy, and earnings vary significantly across and within platforms, suggesting dominant interpretations are insufficient. We find that the extent to which workers are dependent on platform income to pay basic expenses rather than working for supplemental income explains the variation in outcomes, with supplemental earners being more satisfied and higher-earning. This suggests platforms are free-riding on conventional employers. We also find that platforms are hierarchically ordered, in terms of what providers can earn, conditions of work, and their ability to produce satisfied workers. Our findings suggest the need for a new analytic approach to platforms, which emphasizes labor force diversity, connections to conventional labor markets, and worker dependence.
The rapid growth of the platform economy has provoked scholarly discussion of its consequences for the nature of work and employment. We identify four major themes in the literature on platform work and the underlying metaphors associated with each. Platforms are seen as entrepreneurial incubators, digital cages, accelerants of precarity, and chameleons adapting to their environments. Each of these devices has limitations, which leads us to introduce an alternative image of platforms: as permissive potentates that externalize responsibility and control over economic transactions while still exercising concentrated power. As a consequence, platforms represent a distinct type of governance mechanism, different from markets, hierarchies, or networks, and therefore pose a unique set of problems for regulators, workers, and their competitors in the conventional economy. Reflecting the instability of the platform structure, struggles over regulatory regimes are dynamic and difficult to predict, but they are sure to gain in prominence as the platform economy grows.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 46 is July 30, 2020. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
This paper attempts to grapple with the collective dimension of the phenomenon of the digital transformation of work. In particular, it explores the relevant legal framework, as well as practical obstacles and concrete responses to the process of “platformisation” of labour. It questions why and for what collective bargaining may be a viable tool to “negotiate” the direction(s) of this paradigm shift. In particular, it focuses on institutional approaches that pursue inclusive and engaging strategies aimed at organising across labour market segments. It also discusses the extent to which trade unions are interested in the fate of non-standard workers, what strategies they follow and what tools they employ. At the same time, it maps other actions and initiatives carried out by self-organised groups. It focuses on the actors and factors which either hinder or facilitate the development of solidarity.
The topic of mobilisation has been a central interest of academics in the fields of industrial relations, labour sociology and social movement studies. By adopting an empirical approach and a cross-disciplinary analytical lens, this work places itself at the crossroads of these disciplines.
The paper is organised as follows. After providing an outline of the main implications of the spread of new technologies and its impacts on employment relationships, part 2 explores the legal framework regulating collective rights, by considering a number of supranational systems of regulation and discussing the potential impediments arising from a narrow interpretation of antitrust immunities and restrictions. However, practical, in addition to legal, obstacles hamper or make less attractive the exercise of fundamental freedoms for non-standard workers. Accordingly, after describing current difficulties, principal actors, key actions and success factors in a selection of European countries, part 3 assesses recent initiatives and achievements. Finally, part 4 sets out the paper’s key conclusions by estimating future developments and offering policy pointers.
In this inductive, qualitative study, we observe how Uber, a company often hailed as being the poster-child of the sharing economy facilitated through a digital platform may also at times represent and reinforce postcapitalist hyper-exploitation. Drawing on the motivations and lived experiences of 31 Uber drivers in Toronto, Canada, we provide insights into three groups of Uber drivers: (1) those that are driving part-time to earn extra money in conjunction with studying or doing other jobs, (2) those that are unemployed and for whom driving for Uber is the only source of income, and (3) professional drivers, who are trying to keep pace with the durable digital landscape and competitive marketplace. We emphasize the ways in which each driver group simultaneously acknowledges and rejects their own precarious employment by distancing techniques such as minimizing the risks and accentuating the advantages of the driver role. We relate these findings to a broader discussion about how driving for Uber fuels the traditional capitalist narrative that working hard and having a dream will lead to advancement, security and success. We conclude by discussing other alternative economies within the sharing economy.
“Canadian Experience” is a paradox for many immigrants in Canada and contributes to their exclusion from the labour market. Through an analysis of Canadian English print media, from 2006 to 2011, we illustrate how “Canadian Experience” discourse places the responsibility of immigrant labour market integration on immigrants themselves and constructs their experiences of exclusion as non-racial. This is theorized as a “post-racial” strategy that relies on anti-racialism (avoidance of racial references) to deny the existence and effects of racism, thereby allowing the Canadian public to maintain its façade of innocence but perpetuates “racism without racists”. The discourse de-historicizes postcolonial racial hierarchy and promotes a de-racialized neo-liberal model for immigrant inclusion. This has implications for anti-racism and settlement service provision.
The sharing or "gig" economy claims to bring the romance of entrepreneurialism to the masses. Through peer-to-peer technology, workers can monetise their homes, resources, time and skills to make additional money. What is marketed as an empowering business opportunity is laden with difficulties and contradictions. Sudden changes to platform design, service offerings and algorithms leave workers feeling vulnerable, not independent. Instead of embracing sharing economy rhetoric, most workers describe themselves as simply seeking money. This article sheds light on the diversity of the gig economy and questions sharing economy company claims that they are contributing to the growth of entrepreneurship. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved.
As ever more policy-makers, governments and organisations turn to the gig economy and digital labour as an economic development strategy to bring jobs to places that need them, it becomes important to understand better how this might influence the livelihoods of workers. Drawing on a multi-year study with digital workers in Sub-Saharan Africa and South-east Asia, this article highlights four key concerns for workers: bargaining power, economic inclusion, intermediated value chains, and upgrading. The article shows that although there are important and tangible benefits for a range of workers, there are also a range of risks and costs that unduly affect the livelihoods of digital workers. Building on those concerns, it then concludes with a reflection on four broad strategies – certification schemes, organising digital workers, regulatory strategies and democratic control of online labour platforms – that could be employed to improve conditions and livelihoods for digital workers.
Call centres have been initiated primarily to reduce organisational cost while simultaneously providing high-quality service. However, it is now well established that the twin objectives of reducing costs per customer transaction and simultaneously encouraging the employees to be quality-oriented are fundamentally contradictory. This contradiction could have serious repercussions for an organisation's survival. In the context of the organisation studied, the imbalance between efficiency and customer service was the primary reason for closure complimented by a lack of resources, poor leadership and weak HR systems. Qualitative interviews with call centre agents impacted by the closure also revealed that the HR practices followed by the management during the process of closure could be labelled as non-socially responsible. Not only was the decision not communicated in advance to the employees, but they were also deprived of their salaries and incentives for the last few months that they worked with the organisation. Nonetheless, given that the closure took place in a buoyant economy most of them were able to find jobs almost immediately in well-established organisations with higher salaries, albeit with the shift of priority from high pay to high job security. The job search criteria used by participants' post-displacement emphasised non-economic criteria, probably providing answers for the problem of high labour turnover rates witnessed in the IT-enabled business services–business process outsourcing industry.
Drawing on original survey and interview data on platform-based food delivery workers, we deploy an intersectional lens to analyze the ways in which the white working-class women who predominate in this sector of the gig economy interpret their work experience. With a focus on the gender–class nexus, we explore the reasons why these workers, especially mothers and other caregivers, self-select into this sector. These include: scheduling flexibility, which facilitates balancing paid work and family care; the opportunity to use previously unpaid food shopping skills to generate income, a neoliberal form of “wages for housework”; and the emotional rewards of serving elderly and disabled customers who cannot easily shop for themselves. Although these workers embrace the traditional gender division of labor and normative femininity, at the same time they express strong class resentment of both the companies they work for and the class and gender entitlements of their most privileged customers.
Silicon Valley technology is transforming the way we work, and Uber is leading the charge. An American startup that promised to deliver entrepreneurship for the masses through its technology, Uber instead built a new template for employment using algorithms and Internet platforms. Upending our understanding of work in the digital age, Uberland paints a future where any of us might be managed by a faceless boss. The neutral language of technology masks the powerful influence algorithms have across the New Economy. Uberland chronicles the stories of drivers in more than twenty-five cities in the United States and Canada over four years, shedding light on their working conditions and providing a window into how they feel behind the wheel. The book also explores Uber’s outsized influence around the world: the billion-dollar company is now influencing everything from debates about sexual harassment and transportation regulations to racial equality campaigns and labor rights initiatives. Based on award-winning technology ethnographer Alex Rosenblat’s firsthand experience of riding over 5,000 miles with Uber drivers, daily visits to online forums, and face-to-face discussions with senior Uber employees, Uberland goes beyond the headlines to reveal the complicated politics of popular technologies that are manipulating both workers and consumers.
This study examines the incidence and wage effects of vertical, horizontal, and full job-education mismatch for high skilled immigrant and native-born men over a six-year period, using a Canadian longitudinal dataset. Immigrants (particularly racial minorities immigrants) are more likely to be fully mismatched than white native-born Canadians. Full mismatch lowers initial wages, especially for racial minority immigrants. Full mismatch accelerates immigrants' wage growth slightly over time, but this is not enough to narrow the immigrant wage gap over the six-year survey period. The results highlight the importance of disaggregating the different types of job-education mismatch experienced by immigrants.
Drawing on interviews from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area, this study explores how Uber and Lyft drivers understand their own digital labor. Situated between the presumed freedom of the digital economy and the feelings of risk that accompany independently contracted work under neoliberalism, these drivers evidence what we term splintering precarity—a bifurcated set of risks that stands in contrast to both certain more privileged dotcom employees who may not require a supplemental income and less privileged laborers who are denied even the “on-demand” employment of Uber and Lyft. The experience of these drivers offers an important picture of the affective impacts of the infrastructural outsourcing that characterizes much early 21st-century economics.
For much of the twentieth century, large companies employing many workers formed the bedrock of the U.S. economy. Today, on the list of big business's priorities, sustaining the employer-worker relationship ranks far below building a devoted customer base and delivering value to investors. As David Weil's groundbreaking analysis shows, large corporations have shed their role as direct employers of the people responsible for their products, in favor of outsourcing work to small companies that compete fiercely with one another. The result has been declining wages, eroding benefits, inadequate health and safety conditions, and ever-widening income inequality.From the perspectives of CEOs and investors, fissuring--splitting off functions that were once managed internally--has been a phenomenally successful business strategy, allowing companies to become more streamlined and drive down costs. Despite giving up direct control to subcontractors, vendors, and franchises, these large companies have figured out how to maintain quality standards and protect the reputation of the brand. They produce brand-name products and services without the cost of maintaining an expensive workforce. But from the perspective of workers, this lucrative strategy has meant stagnation in wages and benefits and a lower standard of living--if they are fortunate enough to have a job at all.Weil proposes ways to modernize regulatory policies and laws so that employers can meet their obligations to workers while allowing companies to keep the beneficial aspects of this innovative business strategy.
The coping behavior of families facing plantation closures is evidenced in their jobseeking, in their dependence on social alliance systems, and in the role changes they experienced within their families. Their behavior was constrained by expectations derived from earlier actions by the plantation companies and by government, as well as sometimes being limited by low levels of education and English-speaking ability.
There is growing literature focusing on the effects of plant closings on displaced workers. Although the gist of this literature is that plant closings have substantial negative economic, social/psychological, and physical health effects on workers, this “social problems” approach, by not placing capital mobility in the larger politicaleconomic context, is far too restrictive. We contend that plant closings need to be seen as playing an important role in the struggle between labor and management for control in the workplace. We examine this notion by analyzing the 1980-1981 relocation of GM's Corvette plant from St. Louis to Bowling Green, Kentucky. By analyzing interviews with relocated workers and company and union officials, along with various company and union documents, we trace the role that this relocation had in restructuring labor-management relations. In our concluding section, we note the implications of this both for the study of plant closings and for the study of the workplace struggle between capital and labor.
Using gender as its analytic lens, this article examines segmentation in the Canadian labour market by focusing on the standard employment relationship. It illustrates how standard employment was crafted upon a speii gender division of paid and unpaid labour, the male breadwinner norm, and was only available to a narrow segment of workers. To this end, it traces how from the lOSOs the standard employment relationship ws supelemanted by a growth in jobs associated with, and filed pnrimaly by, women workers and it shows how women's increasing labour market participation in the late 196Os and early 1970s shaped demands for equality in employment policies. Since the 1 9SOs, a deterioration in the standard employment relationship has undermined both demands for and the basis of gender equality strategies and the article concludes by raising the question of the normative basis for regulating employment in order to Move towards strategies for reregulation.
Recasting labor studies in a long-term and global framework, the book draws on a major new database on world labor unrest to show how local labor movements have been related to world-scale political, economic, and social processes since the late nineteenth century. Through an in-depth empirical analysis of select global industries, the book demonstrates how the main locations of labor unrest have shifted from country to country together with shifts in the geographical location of production. It shows how the main sites of labor unrest have shifted over time together with the rise or decline of new leading sectors of capitalist development and demonstrates that labor movements have been deeply embedded (as both cause and effect) in world political dynamics. Over the history of the modern labor movement, the book isolates what is truly novel about the contemporary global crisis of labor movements. Arguing against the view that this is a terminal crisis, the book concludes by exploring the likely forms that emergent labor movements will take in the twenty-first century.
Recent research points to a growing gap between immigrant and native-born outcomes in the Canadian labour market at the same time as selection processes emphasize recruiting highly educated newcomers. Drawing on interviews with well-educated men and women who migrated from countries in sub-Saharan Africa, this paper explores the gendered processes that produce weak economic integration in Canada. Three-quarters of research participants experienced downward occupational mobility, with the majority employed in low-skilled, low-wage, insecure forms of “survival employment”. In a gendered labour market, where common demands for “Canadian experience”, “Canadian credentials” and “Canadian accents” were uneven across different sectors of the labour market, women faced particular difficulties finding “survival employment”; in the long run, however, women’s greater investment in additional post-secondary education within Canada placed them in a somewhat better position than men. The policy implications of this study are fourfold: first, we raise questions about the efficacy of Canadian immigration policies that prioritize the recruitment of well-educated immigrants without addressing the multiple barriers that result in deskillling; second, we question government policies and settlement practices that undermine more equitable economic integration of immigrants; third, we address the importance of tackling the “everyday racism” that immigrants experience in the Canadian labour market; and finally, we suggest the need to re-think narrowly defined notions of economic integration in light of the gendered nature of contemporary labour markets, and immigrants’ own definitions of what constitutes meaningful integration.
Using survey and interview information, the impacts of job loss on former employees of a Zenith Corporation plant in Springfield, Missouri, are identified and placed in the context of existing research findings. Even in the “New Economy” period of national economic expansion and in a robust local job market, many displaced workers endured significant drops in earnings and benefits and experienced decreased work satisfaction. Although women took longer than men to become reemployed, displacement did not lead more women than men to withdraw permanently from the labor force. Additionally, the plant closing led some workers to adopt more critical attitudes toward big business and government and to strengthen their support of organized labor. A model that predicts perceived negative impacts of displacement and links them to disaffection with business and government is presented. The study also explores reasons why programs for displaced Zenith workers were not broadly effective and suggests ways that such programs could be reformed to be of greater use for future dislocated workers.
We investigate whether job loss due to plant closure causes an increased risk of (cause-specific) mortality and hospitalization for male workers having strong labour market attachment. We use administrative data: a panel of all persons in Denmark in the period 1980-2006, containing records on health and work status, and a link from workers to plants. We use propensity score weighting combined with non-parametric duration analysis. We find that job loss increases the risk of overall mortality and mortality caused by circulatory disease; of suicide and suicide attempts; and of death and hospitalization due to traffic accidents, alcohol-related disease, and mental illness.
This study examines the extent to which job displacement divides the career experiences for a cohort of workers. Previous studies of job displacement find nontrivial economic losses for displaced workers, but the effects of displacement on “non-economic” properties of jobs have been largely overlooked. Results using the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study indicate that workers who were displaced have lower levels of occupational status, job authority, and employer-offered pension and health insurance than they would have had had they not been displaced. Difference-in-differences estimates, which control for temporally-invariant unobserved heterogeneity, are generally larger than cross-sectional estimates; still, there is a close correspondence of estimates across a range of methodological approaches attesting to the robustness of the estimates in the face of various technical assumptions and model specifications. Effects of displacement on job quality also exhibit conditioning by gender, education, occupation, and industry: while less educated, blue collar and manufacturing workers experience significant losses for employer-offered benefits, more educated, upper white collar and non-manufacturing workers experience significant losses for occupational status, job autonomy, and job authority.
The experiences of women and men workers displaced from jobs in 1989 by three plant closings in Indiana were examined. The focus was on three interrelated hypotheses concerning gender differences in the economic, psychological, and social effects of job loss. Questionnaires were sent to workers shortly after the closings and twelve months after the closings. Findings on economic effects indicated no gender difference in reemployment. When reemployed, both men and women suffered wage loss, but women lost less proportionately, due to their lower absolute wages prior to the closings. No gender differences were found in psychological effects and family relationships. Displaced women workers were somewhat more alienated from social institutions and more likely to support government actions to remedy unemployment.
Using grounded theory as an example, this paper examines three methodological questions that are generally applicable to all qualitative methods. How should the usual scientific canons be reinterpreted for qualitative research? How should researchers report the procedures and canons used in their research? What evaluative criteria should be used in judging the research products? We propose that the criteria should be adapted to fit the procedures of the method. We demonstrate how this can be done for grounded theory and suggest criteria for evaluating studies following this approach. We argue that other qualitative researchers might be similarly specific about their procedures and evaluative criteria.
TOMANEY J., PIKE A. and CORNFORD J. (1999) Plant closure and the local economy: the case of Swan Hunter on Tyneside, Reg. Studies 33, 401-411. This paper seeks to describe and account for the closure of a Tyneside shipyard and to illuminate the wider issues concerning plant closure and the local economy. It begins by reviewing the relevant literature and suggests the need for a political economy of plant closure and its aftermath, informed by insights from economic sociology and institutional economics. The paper attempts to integrate an understanding of the political and economic context of the demise of the shipyard with a study of the labour market impact of its closure. The argument is that the complexities of the yard's closure and its local economic consequences can be better understood when the political and economic context of the sociological production and institutionally framed character of redundancy are revealed.
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