A new subjectivity in digital platform capitalism? Marginal notes on power and conflict in the time of algorithms (original) (raw)
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Findings: 1) The use of digital technologies is being contested by workers and organised labour, giving rise to offensive and defensive labour struggles both in the Global North and South. 2) An increasing variety and dynamism are being exhibited by collective associations and representation of workers, especially in the platform economy. 3) Combining the power resources of grassroots initiatives and "established" trade unions is key to advancing workers’ power and rights.
Concept and criticism of digital labour platforms
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This paper critically addresses the changes brought by the digital economy and its digital platforms to Labour Law. It examines the concept of labour platforms and its typologies and models, including the critique of the online and offline work categories and offers other alternative solutions. It confronts the role of Labour Law, considering the perspectives of wage labour regulation in theses platforms, and reflects on the relation between precariousness, technology and its fetishes.
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2020
The world of work has changed rapidly. New forms of employment (platform employment, crowd-working, fulfilling small gigs) are on the increase. Different views are voiced about the application of individual employment law to the new forms of employment. On that topic, uncertainty prevails. At the same time, the new-workers are unionising and they are organising collective actions against the platform-owners, while the legal grounds of such collective actions remain unclear. Do these collective actions constitute a part of collective labour law or they are outside of the scope of application? The recent case law of the European Committee of Social Rights shows that the selfemployed and the new-workers also could have an opportunity to profit from the legal regulation of collective labour relations. The article examines the importance of collective labour relations for the new forms of employment (new workers) and the possible applicability of collective labour law to the new forms of...
Reconsidering digital labour: Bringing tech workers into the debate
New Technology, Work and Employment, 2022
The digital labour debate has produced manifold insights into new forms of work emerging within digital capitalism. So far, though, most research has focused on highly precarious labourers, neglecting the growing ranks of affluent 'tech workers'. I argue that this analytical oversight can be attributed to a narrow con-ceptualisation of digital labour. Thus, this article first proposes a broadening of the digital labour concept to encompass all work entangled with the digital economy. In a second step, I demonstrate the heuristic surplus of this theoretical broadening through a discussion of the empirical literature on tech workers. By bringing tech workers into the debate, I point to the cultural, technological and organisational relations between high and low-paid digital labourers. Pursuing twin-aims, the article combines a theoretical reconsideration of digital labour with an analytical discussion of the literature on tech workers to provide a more relational account of work and class in digital capitalism.
Building Workers’ Power In Digital Capitalism
Trade Unions in Transformation 4.0, 2021
Findings: 1) The use of digital technologies is being contested by workers and organised labour, giving rise to offensive and defensive labour struggles both in the Global North and South. 2) An increasing variety and dynamism are being exhibited by collective associations and representation of workers, especially in the platform economy. 3) Combining the power resources of grassroots initiatives and "established" trade unions is key to advancing workers’ power and rights.
Work and Sensibilities: Commodification and Processes of Expropriation Around Digital Labour
Digital Labour, Society and the Politics of Sensibilities, 2019
Connections between revolution 4.0, labour and the current process of social structuring involve transformations in practices and conceptualizations of the "world of work". In this context, for example, the notion of digital labour has revitalized discussions around critical communication studies, but it has also been relevant to inquiries on the metamorphosis of work relationships, and even in studies of everyday life in the context of Society 4.0. Addressing questions emerging from those insights, this chapter explores some contributions from the sociology of the
TripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, 2022
In this article, we investigate labour struggles under the condition of digital capitalism. The main research question we address is: How do German unions evaluate and respond to the rapidly accelerating digitalisation of economy and work? Based on a series of interviews with union representatives in Germany, we trace recent developments within an increasingly digitised economy, outlining challenges and opportunities for unions. Our findings show that the large-scale deployment of digital technologies fragments the workforce, reduces social standards, worsens working conditions, and exacerbates power imbalances to the detriment of the employed. These disadvantages are only insufficiently met with new opportunities to raise public awareness and connect with and mobilise workers by means of digital communication technologies. Our study suggests a growing significance of technological expertise for unions, a need to meet global capital with enhanced international and regional cooperation among labour organisations, and the importance of uniting established unions and grassroots workers' movements in shared struggles to improve the situation of workers under technologyenhanced conditions of globalised exploitation and control.
Special issue of tripleC journal entitled "Philosophers of the World Unite! Theorising Digital Labour and Virtual Work - Definitions, Dimensions and Forms", 2014
This special issue of tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique aims to contribute to building a theoretical framework for the critical analysis of digital labour, virtual work, and related concepts that can initiate further debates, inform empirical studies, and inspire social struggles connected to work and labour in and beyond digital capitalism. The papers collected in this special issue (a) provide systematic definitions of digital labour, (b) analyse its specific dimension, and (c) discuss different forms of digital labour.