Antagonism beyond employment: how the ‘subordinated agency’ of labour platforms generates conflict in the remote gig economy

Abstract

This article investigates why gig economy workers who see themselves as self-employed freelancers also engage in collective action traditionally associated with regular employment. Using ethnographic evidence on the remote gig economy in North America, the United Kingdom, and the Philippines, we argue that labour platforms increase the agency of workers to contract with clients and thus reduce the risk of false self-employment in terms of the worker-client relationship. However, in doing so, platforms create a new source of subordination to the platform itself. We term this phenomenon ‘subordinated agency’, anddemonstrate that it entails a ‘structured antagonism’ with platforms that manifests in three areas: fees, competition, and worker voice mechanisms. Subordinated agency creates worker desire for representation, greater voice, and even unionisation towards the platform, while preserving entrepreneurial attitudes towards clients.

Dynamics of contention in the gig economy: Rage against the platform, customer or state?

“…Qualitative research conducted in both the local gig economy (Cant, 2019;Cini and Goldmann, 2020;Lei, 2021;Tassinari and Maccarrone, 2020) and remote gig economy (Wood and Lehdonvirta, 2021a) has highlighted importance of the labour relationship for generating contentious politics. Our quantitative findings support the importance of antagonism inherent to the labour relationship in generating worker protest and support for collective action.…”

“…(α = 0.74). These items reflect the antagonism built into the labour process of platform work (Wood and Lehdonvirta, 2021a).…”

“…Length of platform working experience is only associated, positively, with support for Individual Action, suggesting that as workers gain experience on their platform they increase in confidence in dealing robustly with clients. This may be due to workers building up a platform reputation which acts as a source of bargaining power as suggested by the qualitative research of Wood et al (2019a) and Wood and Lehdonvirta (2021a). Gender is only significantly associated with support for State Regulation, where men are less likely to support regulation than women.…”

“…Additionally, with some notable qualitative exceptions (e.g. Anwar and Graham, 2020a;Irani and Silberman, 2013;Lehdonvirta, 2016;Panteli et al, 2020;Wood et al, 2018;Wood and Lehdonvirta, 2021a) most research has focused on contention in the local gig economy.…”

The Internet and public policy: Future directions

“…Large platform companies have introduced rules and business practices that sometimes diverge sharply from locally established practice. An example of this is ride‐hailing and food delivery platforms' extensive use of independent contractors, which is currently being contested across Europe (Tassinari & Maccarrone, 2020; Wood & Lehdonvirta, 2021). At the same time, government agencies may lack the resources and the know‐how to regulate individual transactions in the digital economy, resulting in regulatory implementation in practice being outsourced to private platform companies.…”