Conference Agenda

In an era marked by rapid technological advancements and shifting political economy landscapes, gig and platform workers in India are redefining the dynamics of labour market regulation. This paper explores the various ways in which these workers harness their agency and collective voice to influence policy reform, shaping ‘new’ models of social protection amidst growing digital precarity and neoliberal retrenchment. The study is framed around two central research questions: How have gig and platform workers in India mobilised and articulated their demands for enhanced labour rights and protections? And what strategies have they employed to counter the unpredictability and erosion in the quality of work and employment?

Drawing on a multi-method approach, the research combines primary data from 55 telephonic interviews with ride-hailing and delivery workers in two Indian cities - Ranchi and Kolkata, and multiple interviews with key labour organisers from three newly established ‘indie’ (or interdependent) unions in Telangana and Rajasthan, India. These qualitative insights are further supported by secondary analysis of gig and platform workers’ social media activism, their interventions in electoral contests, and in legal and legislative processes. This methodological triangulation allows for a nuanced understanding of individual worker practice, broader collective action, and non-traditional forms of organising.

Findings of the paper reveal that while a major share of workers leverage informal networks to seek solidarity and support (Ray, 2024), in some states they have started aligning strategically with new ‘indie’ unions to directly impact law-making. In states like Telangana, Rajasthan, and Karnataka, these unions have employed broader tactics that combine social media mobilisation, public protests, spontaneous strikes, and targeted lobbying, to pressure local unions and (opposing party) politicians to introduce and enact sector-specific welfare legislations. The major contribution of the paper to literature, thus, lies in extending our understanding of contemporary labour’s legal empowerment in India, reconciling the concept of ‘political society’ (Chatterjee, 2004) with recent surges in mobilisation of gig and platform workers by independent unions. By positioning gig and platform workers’ strategies as a continuum of the ‘third wave of informal workers’ empowerment’ through the politics of welfare boards (Agarwala, 2008, 2019), the paper provides a fresh perspective on how gig and platform labour disrupt state-corporate relations and potentially drive welfare state expansion, though not without compromises.

Issues of platform workers’ precariousness and limited access to labor and social protection are well documented. A less documented issue is gig workers’ limited ability to have a voice at work and in policy debates around the future of the world of work. A key challenge in this respect is the capacity of gig workers’ grass-roots initiatives to connect and join forces with outside actors, i.e. conventional social partners and policy-makers at local, national and international level. With regard to social dialogue in the gig economy, available evidence suggests that two situations seem to prevail where worker voice is either impeded or limited in its expression: first, a situation of absent social dialogue where platform managers successfully implement silencing strategies in order to impose a view of gig work as creating opportunities rather than generating precariousness – as a consequence workers’ collective voice is not heard and gig workers have to negotiate individual arrangements and are unable to contest the platforms’ business model; second, a situation of fragmented social dialogue where the mobilization of gig workers stands in contrast with existing trade unions defending their members’ interests, leading to cases where social dialogue can even take place against gig workers mobilizing for better working conditions, e.g. when a union secretly negotiates a collective agreement during an industrial dispute. In both situations, worker organising, the development of agency, voice and representation and its expression through collective bargaining are faced with multiple barriers, resulting from legal, spatial, organizational and social fragmentation.

The objective of our paper is to suggest pathways to move beyond such fragmentation and strengthen workers’ voices in the gig economy. To this purpose we explore two contrasted case studies in the Swiss context: one where space could be found for the emergence of a unified social dialogue, where all workers, be they members of conventional trade unions or gig workers, could join forces to reach a platform-level collective agreement; another one, where fragmentation and competition between workers’ representatives along the insider-outsider dilemma prevailed, with grass-roots initiatives by gig workers (playing the part of the outsiders) and trade union strategies for insiders moving on separate and even opposite tracks. Confronting both case studies in the light of the available literature allows identifying the conditions for a successful unified social dialogue and drawing recommendations about how worker voice and solidarity can be enhanced in the digital economy and beyond

This article examines how workers leverage data access rights to amplify their collective voice in the platform economy, through a case study of the social dialogue process in Geneva following the Swiss Federal Supreme Court's reclassification of Uber drivers' employment status. Drawing on five interviews with key stakeholders and ethnographic observations, we analyse an innovative form of collective action where drivers collaborated with data activists to mobilise personal data protection regulation in pursuit of labour rights. The findings reveal how technical expertise in making geolocation data readable and actionable enabled meaningful accountability over algorithmic management practices, strengthening drivers' negotiating position and enhancing union bargaining power vis-à-vis dominating platforms in the gig economy. However, several challenges emerged: the structural constraints of the social dialogue process, misaligned goals between stakeholders, fragmented collective identity among drivers, and heterogeneous worker interests complicated sustained collective action. This research contributes with concrete practices on how to raise worker voice and rebalance the asymmetry of information and power between platforms, states and workers. It demonstrates both the potential and limitations of data rights as tools for collective action in the light of the regulation of platforms in local labour markets. The findings offer critical insights for developing new mechanisms to strengthen worker agency in platform work within complex and multilevel regulatory systems like in Switzerland, whilst highlighting the need for institutional frameworks that better support collective mobilisation in algorithmic-mediated work environments.

Uber operates in over 70 countries; each has their own laws surrounding citizens' digital footprints and protections over individual data, including worker data. This paper examines how rideshare drivers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ghana use their legal right to access their data – the data collected by rideshare companies on workers – to fight for better worker protection and rights. Organizations like Gig Workers Rising in the United States and the Executive Female App-Based Transportation Union in Ghana have brought rideshare drivers together for strikes and even large protests outside Uber CEO Tony Xu’s house. Recently, their efforts have expanded, and their new target isn’t just platform application companies' CEOs but the worker data they control. This, however, has proven to be challenging as the legal pathway for holding platform application companies accountable for drivers' data varies from country to country. This paper examines how platform workers use the legal system to access their data and how this data can be used in organizing tactics geared toward fighting for better worker protection and rights.

Research Question: How does the legal context surrounding workers' data rights differ between countries, and what impact does this have on the methods platform workers use when employing the law to enforce their rights and gain better protections?

Methodology: In this study, I rely on interview data from 44 rideshare drivers, news reports, court hearings, and legal briefings to understand the scope of the legal battle platform workers are in regarding enforcing their rights to access their data.

Findings:

All workers are constantly threatened by retaliation when fighting to enforce their right to access data collected by platform applications. While historical cases in the legal arena have appeared, what has not manifested is a governing body that enforces the rights won in such cases. In some cases, drivers have the right to request their data; everything related to the data, from the timeline with which it is received to the quality and quantity of the data, is subject to the whims of the platform application companies. The legal parameters become even more sparse when considering Ghana's legal context. Thus, at the end of this paper, I share my recommendations for three new policies that enforce platform workers' data rights.