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This paper presents findings from the Leeds Index of Platform Labour Protest, a database of platform worker protest events around the world which gathers data from online news media reports and other online sources. For the period January 2017 to July 2020, we identified 1,271 instances of worker protest in four platform sectors: ride-hailing, food delivery, courier services and grocery delivery. Our results show that the single most important cause of platform worker protest is pay, with other protested issues including employment status, and health and safety. In most global regions, strikes, log-offs and demonstrations predominated as a form of protest. Furthermore, platform worker protests showed a strong tendency to be driven from below by worker self-organization, although trade unions also had an important presence in some parts of the world. From the four platform sectors examined, ride-hailing and food delivery accounted for most protest events. Although the growth of platform worker organization is remarkable, formal collective bargaining is uncommon, as is formal employment, with ad hoc self-organized groups of workers dominating labour protest across the different sectors, particularly in the global South.

With a novel methodology searching news events from world’s largest news agencies via the online GDELT project, this report documents protest of key workers against their working conditions during the COVID-19pandemic in 90 countries. The report offers the first global dataset of labour protests of key workers during the pandemic. It focusses on two sectors, healthcare and retail. The results show that, overall, despite large volumes of protest over acute COVID-related problems such as the provision of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), the main concern of protesting workers during the pandemic was their pay. Collective action accompanying demands for pay rises involved not only the withdrawal of labour, but also demonstrations and leverage tactics. Health and safety was the second most important concern, and protests linked to these demands did not cease when the pandemic became less deadly. Protest spiked during the initial March 2020 lockdowns, before continuing at a lower level throughout the pandemic. The report identifies important variation between countries and sectors, and highlights specific local contingencies, and strategic decisions taken by workers and their unions. To this end, the report also analyses in more detail five countries where protest was particularly important: France, India, Nigeria, the United States, and Argentina.The report offers a first step to understanding the variety of labour protests beyond more institutionalised forms of collective voice. It will be important to study further the relation between informal forms of protest action and institutionalised gains, during and beyond COVID-19.

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Labor struggle and workers' collective agency are central concerns of labor studies researchers. Such an appreciation seems particularly apposite given contemporary debates around the future of work. As Schulze-Cleven and Vachon (2021) note, much future of work debate has been inscribed by technological and market fundamentalism. The actions and experiences of workers are often absent from a narrative that instead tends to focus on predicting the extent of technology-driven job destruction or state policies that help workers navigate a future of profound industrial transformation. Against this, Schulze-Cleven and Vachon's edited volume stands as an important corrective, offering an analytical approach that revalues labor within a human-centered future of work that extends beyond a purely technological focus to also incorporate environmental change and social reproduction. This symposium contribution builds on Schulze-Cleven and Vachon's analytical approach to focus on labor struggles internationally in the platform economy.For Schulze-Cleven (2021), core features of a labor studies approach include putting the experiences of working people and how they look to defend and advance their interests through collective action at the center of analysis. While platform work still accounts for a small proportion of total employment, platforms are often seen to be key drivers of capitalist restructuring predicated on more insecure and precarious jobs. Platform work is typically characterized by dubious forms of self-employment, set against historical ideals of a standard employment contract, whereby tasks are