Conference Agenda

This paper aims to document the evolutionary process of collectivization of a grassroot level workers’ organization called the Indian Federation of App Based Transport Workers (IFAT), which is based on their strategic intervention to protect and promote the rights of platform workers in India. The study uses a comparative evolutionary institutional framework to locate the workers' initiatives in the collectives building process. Unlike any other trade unions, this collective is fostered and nurtured by worker driven initiative to mobilize workers for their own workers’ rights through mobile connectivity, social media and other online platforms that solidify their collective interests. The evolutionary process of collectivization of IFAT is a result of workers’ reaction to exploitative practices of platforms, perilous working conditions and lack of employee entitlements that push their daily struggle to survive into precarious lives. The formation of IFAT was based on seeking collective justice of labour rights through legal recourse of justice seeking at the Supreme Court of India, in 2020. While pursuing legal justice and reclaiming labour rights, the formation of IFAT and its polity was largely shaped by the judicial intervention as well. Hence, this also examines the effects of judicial intervention in shaping the worker’s collectives. In the pretext, when higher rates of unemployment in urban areas and lack of opportunities for work and a low entry barrier in joining app-based work are creating a saturation in work created a necessary condition to reclaim collective rights for collective interest. IFAT is a result of it. It was formed as a federation of ride-sharing and other gig transport workers unions. Main aims of IFAT are to ensure that app-based drivers have social security benefits under the new labour codes through fostering multi-union institutions and shared collectives. It thus puts the demand for regulation of the location-based platform workers. To locate the collective interest and issues of workers, in November 2019 IFAT along with ITF jointly surveyed the health and safety of app-based drivers. Based on this survey a report was published which included findings that a large section of respondents had no form of social security or protection. As drivers, accidental insurance is a minimum requirement that must be provided by the companies. Using focused group discussions and analysis of legal documents this paper tracks IFAT’s discourse development, its negotiation strategies with multi-unions, state-actors and platforms and documents the institutional challenges the organization is facing in currently.

“Breque dos Apps” was a social movement of a “striker” nature, which took place in Brazil in July, 2020. Such movement was organized by workers which provided services to delivery apps (like iFood, Loggi, Uber Eats and Rappi), aiming to give visibility to the precarious working conditions to which these workers were submitted. Although such conditions have been inherent to the provision of this kind of work in its origins, the scenario caused by the pandemic of the new coronavirus, vector of the Covid-19 disease, caused a significant impact and brought this issue to be discussed on the public debate. Considering there is no consensus in Brazil whether or not to qualify digital platform workers as employees or as autonomous workers, they are not able to collectively organize themselves through unions. Thus, they are prevented from obtaining the legal protection conferred to strike movements, since in Brazil unions are the only entities legally authorized to organize strikes. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to analyze how the movement was organized in order to overcome the legal barrier arising from the fact that workers cannot organize themselves around unions. Thereby, in order to investigate what are the lessons left by the strategy adopted by the organizers of “Breque dos Apps”, the following main research question is proposed: is “Breque dos Apps” a representation of new forms of protest and solidarity-based responses oriented towards the protection platform workers, thus able to provide broader lessons to be learned about how to organize platform workers? The referred main research question is supported by secondary research questions, notably aimed at investigating: (i) if there was support from civil society to the workers; (ii) how the companies in the delivery through platform business reacted to the organization of the workers; (iii) what were the worker’s claims. Regarding the methodological approach, the study applies a theoretical qualitative research conducted through documental and bibliographic review techniques, based on the analysis and interpretation of data obtained mainly from literature and documents related to the themes. This study intends to contribute mainly – but not exclusively – to the legal literature by demonstrating how platform workers organized themselves in Brazil demanding better working conditions and, based on the movement they implemented, known as “Breque dos Apps”, showing finds of what lessons can be extracted and reproduced in favor of future movements with the same goals.

The digitally mediated platforms are leading to intense restructuring in labour relations and their micro-political interactions vis-à-vis traditional hierarchical structures. Existing literature depicts that the models dwelling on data and algorithmic programming are not standalone operations that replace or reduce biasness from decision-making; indeed, these are massive networked systems that are embedded in the broader socio-technical assemblages and are relational, contingent, and ontogenetic in nature (Seaver, 2013; Bolin and Schwarz, 2015; Burrell, 2016; Kitchin, 2016). Agency is constrained via different algorithmic and data-centric control and monitoring mechanisms breeding insecurities, and disrupting lateral relations among workers through instilling inter-worker competition (Gandini, 2019; Tassinari and Maccarrone, 2019; Anwar and Graham, 2020; Barratt et al. 2020; Barratt et al. 2020; Pastuh and Geppert, 2020; Stewart and Stanford, 2020).

This research intends to explore how the macro-structural conditions or the individual firm-level configurations influence the lived experiences and agential reactions among workers labouring under similar labour processes in digital platforms. It uses labour process theory through a critical realist perspective to create an integrative approach in reflecting on the linkages between the micro-level relations within the broader macro-context. The research design is built on a comparative case study approach to analyse the similarities and variations in the influence of platform-based technologies on labour relations across distinct tech hubs in India and Italy. In this, 120 platform-to-consumer food delivery workers have been selected across cities of India [Mumbai and Guwahati] and Italy [Milan and Bologna] using stratified purposive sampling. Data has been collected through semi-structured interviews and observations, designed to involve respondents in critical thinking and explore their experiences from both a reflective and experiential perspective. Each interview has been transcribed verbatim and analysed within, and across the cases using the statistical software MAXQDA to store, code and thematically analyse the data.

These findings are considered within the broader labour regimes of both contexts and expect to add to the North-South debates over platform economies. It is expected to address, firstly, understanding how and to what extent institutional or structural conditioning supports, reinforces or restricts workers' organising practices; secondly, analysing whether collective or individual practices enhance their opportunities for gaining access, visibility, and income; thirdly, to examine are some workers more inclined towards appropriating algorithmic practices over conventional class-based collective resistance; and, fourthly, are this structural conditioning and agential reactions further influenced via the local labour control regimes operating within each context.