Divided we fall: The breakdown of gig worker solidarity in online communities

Abstract

The ‘gig economy’ presents a contested new work arrangement where freelancers find work on digital platforms. Subsequently, previous research has investigated how gig workers develop solidarity and take collective action against the exploitative practices of the platforms. However, this research is limited by mostly focusing on solidarity in contexts of local gig worker communities. We investigate whether freelancers who work on a global platform, Upwork, which hires people for diverse and complex jobs, can build up solidarity in a global online community. Applying a mixed‐methods research design, we analysed how gig workers responded to a policy change by Upwork that affected their working conditions negatively. In doing so, we outline how solidarity breaks down in an online community of gig workers, due to them realising different interests and identities. We contribute to recent discussions on solidarity in the gig economy, and online communities as tools for organising.

Resilience in Times of a Pandemic

“…Drawing from the community’s data allowed me to both uncover adaptation strategies employed by gig workers and deepen gig workers’ use of the community. Through my findings, I am able to provide further details on the nature of collaboration within online communities and speculate about the types of knowledge that is being transferred online, as well as about the affordances provided by online communities (Faraj & Azad, 2012; Leonardi, 2011; Schou & Bucher, 2023). Technology affordances have been defined as “action possibilities and opportunities that emerge from actors engaging with a focal technology” (Faraj & Azad, 2012, p. 241) – in our case, online communities.…”

“…Some evidence is close to mine and shows that solidarity, collaboration, and support happen on online communities (Gray et al, 2016; Lehdonvirta, 2016; Ma et al, 2020). At the same time, other evidence suggests that conflict is likely to emerge (Schou & Bucher, 2023) and that gig workers look at peers as competitors rather than as collaborators (Graham et al, 2017). As said, my findings support the first perspective, but this could derive from the uncertain and transversal consequences of the pandemic, which equally affected workers regardless of their experience, background, job history, or status on the gig platform.…”

“…Through this evidence, I unpack the process of gig workers' collective job crafting leading to the definition of new practices, which happens via relational resources and which has been recently tied to resilience (Wong et al, 2021). Concurrently, the study speaks to the call for knowledge on the technology affordances provided by online communities of gig workers (Schou & Bucher, 2023).…”

Socio‐technical issues in the platform‐mediated gig economy: A systematic literature review: An Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST) paper

“…For example, digital nomads have become so geographically mobile that they are free to work remotely using ICT and the internet from almost anywhere in the world (Wang et al, 2018). Some become online freelancers working on creative tasks and constantly negotiating with digital services, protocols, and algorithms (Schou & Bucher, 2022). These workers view themselves as entrepreneurs and exercise their agency in a way that sustains the efficiency of digital platforms (Blaising & Dabbish, 2022).…”

“…For example, Ma et al (2018) pointed out that the lack of transparency "opens the door" to biased rating, if the review and rating process is opaque. Platforms' lack of transparency contributes to gig workers' low level of digital literacy, which means that gig workers do not know how to meet certain performance standards to earn higher job success scores (Schou & Bucher, 2022). However, the gig economy has the potential to increase female participation by providing more transparent pay rates online (Foong et al, 2018).…”