Throughout 2020, the Spanish Government initiated the process of regulating all activities related to platform work with the purpose of ‘chasing the fraud of bogus self-employment’ (PSOE and Unidas Podemos, 2020). Somewhat surprisingly, this initiative was met by a substantial wave of protest from the workers who the government proclaimed to be attempting to protect. In this light, the present research explores the arguments of the Spanish sí soy autónomo (yes I am self-employed) movement in its struggle against the Spanish Government. Drawing from a critical discourse analysis of semi-structured interviews to couriers of Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Glovo, as well as to a representative of an association in favour of the preservation of the self-employed status (N = 20), the main finding is that the pursuit of self-employment status is primarily informed by workers’ attempt to escape the precarious working conditions offered to wage-earners in the Spanish labour market as a whole, rather than by an empirically grounded claim. This suggests that new labour legislation addressing the challenges posed by platform work must not overlook the broader context in which it is intended to unfold – otherwise, it may not only fail to improve the workers’ situation, but also drive them to demand what are, actually, further deregulated legal arrangements. As such, this article’s main contribution to the sociological knowledge consists of pointing out that platform work, specificities notwithstanding, cannot be seen as detached from the broader Work landscape.

The abrupt lockdown experienced by a big part of the world population due to the COVID-19 pandemic has bestowed upon home delivery services an unexpected importance. Officially considered amongst “essential services”, their workers circulate freely while most people are advised (when not forced) to stay in their homes. The present paper explores how this context helps to shed light on the precarious situation of the majority of the platform delivery workers (PDW). This is done through in-depth, semi-structured interviews and digital ethnography of the interactions within a WhatsApp group. The main finding is that the COVID-19 context deepened the precarization of the PDW confronting them with four dilemmas from which there is no way out.

This article examines the phenomenon of self‐exploitation among platform couriers, using the company Glovo as a case study. The research, based on a qualitative approach with interviews from 22 different stakeholders, highlights the ways in which precarity, entrepreneurial subjectivity, and gamification intersect to create what are referred to as postdisciplinary control mechanisms. These mechanisms shift the locus of exploitation from the employer to the workers' inner selves, which are compelled to follow implicit guidelines due to their precarious situation. The use of algorithmic management by platform companies like Glovo plays a major role in this architecture marked by overwork, exposure to hazardous conditions, and economic dependence. The article urges policymakers to look beyond platform workers' employment status debate and address the design of algorithms and broader forms of labour precarity, so that policies that successfully improve workers' experience are designed.

O presente artigo consiste numa leitura comparativa das consequências de Portugal ter rejeitado a criação de um nível intermédio de governação entre os poderes central e local - o regional. Analisa-se se essa rejeição significou a estagnação da descentralização, e se isso impediu Portugal de alcançar os restantes estados membros da UE nesta matéria. Também olhamos para as consequências da rejeição da regionalização em termos das desigualdades entre regiões. Também aqui a análise é feita em termos relativos, tendo em conta as tendências nos demais estados membros da UE. Como último eixo de investigação, este artigo conclui que existe um baixo nível de associação entre estratégias de descentralização e redução das desigualdades entre regiões. O grau de abertura do mercado é identificado como uma variável muito mais fortemente correlacionada com um impacto negativo em termos da desigualdade entre regiões de um mesmo país.