Modern Guide To Labour and the Platform Economy

Edited by Jan Drahokoupil, Senior Researcher and Kurt Vandaele, Senior Researcher, European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), Brussels, Belgium

‘This collected volume on the world of work produced by platform companies should be required reading for anyone interested in the modern politics of labor. Drahokoupil and Vandaele have brought together cutting-edge scholars and scholarship to historicize the emergence of the platform economy and to understand its complex, transnational implications for work and workers. Together, the chapters help to contextualize both the challenges and opportunities posed by digital labor and should be required reading for regulators, policymakers, and academics alike.’

• Contents:1 Introduction: Janus meets Proteus in the platform economy 1Jan Drahokoupil and Kurt VandaelePART I CONTEXT AND ISSUES2 The business models of labour platforms: Creating anuncertain future 33Jan Drahokoupil3 Moving on, out or up: The externalization of work to B2Bplatforms 49Pamela Meil and Mehtap Akgü.4 Measuring the platform economy: Different approaches toestimating the size of the online platform workforce 66Agnieszka Piasna5 A historical perspective on the drivers of digital labour platforms 81Gérard Valenduc6 The platform economy at the forefront of a changing worldof work: Implications for occupational health and safety 96Pierre Bérastégui and Sacha Garben7 How place and space matter to union organizing in theplatform economy 112Benjamin Herr, Philip Schörpf and Jörg FleckerPART II REGULATING PLATFORM WORK8 Embedding platforms in contemporary labour law 129Valerio De Stefano and Mathias Wouters9 The regulation of platform work in the European Union:Mapping the challenges 145Sacha Garben10 Workers, platforms and the state: The struggle over digitallabour platform regulation 162Sai Englert, Mark Graham, Sandra Fredman, Darcy duToit, Adam Badger, Richard Heeks and Jean-Paul Van Belle11 Trade union responses to platform work: An evolvingtension between mainstream and grassroots approaches 177Simon Joyce and Mark StuartPART III CASE STUDIES ACROSS THE GLOBE:ONLINE LABOUR PLATFORMS12 The uneven potential of online platform work for humandevelopment at the global margins 194Mark Graham, Vili Lehdonvirta, Alex J. Wood, HelenaBarnard, Isis Hjorth and David Peter Simon13 From outsourcing to crowdsourcing: Assessing theimplications for Indian workers of different outsourcing strategies 209Janine Berg, Uma Rani and Nora Gobel14 The geographic and linguistic variety of online labourmarkets: The cases of Russia and Ukraine 225Mariya Aleksynska, Andrey Shevchuk and Denis StrebkovPART IV CASE STUDIES ACROSS THE GLOBE:LOCATION-BASED LABOUR PLATFORMS15 Aliada and Alia: Contrasting for-profit and non-profitplatforms for domestic work in Mexico and the United States 242Andrea Santiago Páramo and Carlos Piñeyro Nelson16 The role of worker collectives among app-based fooddelivery couriers in France, Germany and Norway: All thesame or different? 258Kristin Jesnes, Denis Neumann, Vera Trappmann andPauline de Becdelièvre17 The pitfalls and promises of successfully organizingFoodora couriers in Toronto 274Raoul Gebert18 Labour management and resistance among platform-basedfood delivery couriers in Beijing 290Jack Linchuan Qiu, Ping Sun and Julie Chen19 Struggles over the power and meaning of digital labourplatforms: A comparison of the Vienna, Berlin, New Yorkand Los Angeles taxi markets 308Hannah Johnston and Susanne Pernicka20 Passenger transport in Australia: Injury compensation,public policy and the health pandemic 323David PeetzPART V CLOSING THOUGHTS21 Institutional experimentation and the challenges ofplatform labour 339Maria FigueroaIndex