Means of Control in the Organization of Digitally Intermediated Care Work

Abstract

Digital platforms that facilitate care work are new entrants to the intermediary marketplace and they are growing in number in response to rising demand for care services. This study examines, through the lens of labour process theory, the means of control utilized by digital platforms operating in Australia which organize and direct disability and aged care. The analysis of terms and conditions and website content reveals four means of control that influence the enactment of the labour process: Shifting risks and responsibilities from the platform to workers and clients; Apportioning the costs of doing business to workers; Dictating contractual arrangements; and Monitoring quality standards of service work. The findings advance knowledge of how power relations embedded in platform business models and the organization of work direct a precarious, freelance workforce. More broadly, the study demonstrates the explanatory power of labour process theory for understanding emergent forms of work and labour.

It's Crowded at the Bottom: Trust, Visibility, and Search Algorithms on Care.com

“…"Passion for the job" as a major theme among top and bottom profiles framed childcare as a passion first, and a job second. This parallels care work platforms' emphasis on "personality matching" (Flanagan, 2019;McDonald et al, 2021;Ticona & Mateescu, 2018a), and indicates that workers may feel the need to frame childcare as a "passion," rather than a "gig" to appear both trustworthy and appealing to clients. This provides support for the argument that "uberization" models don't fit neatly onto Care.com (Ticona et al, 2018); workers on many other gig platforms are not expected to convey their genuine love for the work to clients.…”

“…If invisibility and precarity have historically been characteristics of in-home care work, platforms like Care.com and Sitter City attempt to make it more visible and less "under the table" through increased surveillance of workers (Flanagan, 2019;McDonald et al, 2021;Tandon & Rathi, 2021;Ticona & Mateescu, 2018a). They do so through trust-focused branding, background checks, optional platformmediated payment mechanisms, and client-facing literature that discourages paying workers in cash (Tandon & Rathi, 2021;Ticona & Mateescu, 2018a;Ticona et al, 2018).…”

“…However, care work platforms differ in their strategy; by making these measures "optional," platforms ensure that risk is transferred from the company to the individual workers and clients (van Doorn, 2017). This abdication of risk is one way that care work platforms protect themselves, while exerting control over their workers (McDonald et al, 2021).…”

“…The current literature I have surveyed focuses primarily on either the experiences of workers (e.g., Graham & Anwar, 2019;Tandon & Rathi, 2021;Ticona & Mateescu, 2018a, 2018b or an analysis of how the platforms themselves function (e.g., Flanagan, 2019;McDonald et al, 2021;van Doorn, 2017). Though there is discussion of how workers perceive their own visibility to clients, there is little empirical investigation of how visible they appear in practice.…”

Conflict and control in the contemporary workplace: Structured antagonism revisited

“…The SAC insisted, for example, that 'control' cannot be reduced to a single mechanism: 'simple control' (R. Edwards, 1979) was not simple. Amongst others, Wood (2019), Barratt et al (2020), Heiland (2021 and McDonald et al (2021) give evidence of the complexities of control across different forms of gig work.…”