Building coalitions on Facebook: ‘social media unionism’ among Danish bike couriers

Platform work represents an important challenge for the ‘Danish model’ of unionisation. Using interviews and ethnographic data, this article analyses the strategies of the Danish grassroots union movement the Wolt Workers' Group, representing principally migrant couriers using the food-delivery platform Wolt. This study is an attempt to map an emergent form of flexible labour organisation based on horizontal, informal online networks while supported in different ways by established unions. We term this strategy of balanced autonomy and support ‘social media unionism'. Wolt couriers' attempts at grassroots organisation via social media is an important and understudied issue, especially their complex relationship to union actors. The ‘social media unionism' explored in this article allows for the formation and maintenance of nimble grassroots mobilisation among workers that are otherwise hard for unions to reach, such as migrants platform workers. We argue that this strategy holds both great possibilities and challenges for the labour movement.     

“If I was going to design a chair,the last thing I would look at is a chair”: product analysis and the causes of fixation in students’ design work 11–16 years

Creativity is acknowledged to be important for economic growth and as an everyday life-skill, however several influential reports have suggested that education could do more to harness creative talent. Creative cognition literature suggests the lack of creativity is at least partly the result of ‘fixation’ (difficulty in generating novel ideas due to imagination being ‘structured’ by existing knowledge). This paper focuses on the secondary (students aged 11–16 years) design and technology (D&T) context in the UK. Here we examine whether teacher practice can contribute to fixation by focusing on one specific facet of teacher practice in D&T; the use of product analysis to inform the generation of creative design ideas. Data is drawn from the preliminary phase of a research and intervention project from interviews with D&T teachers (N = 14), students (N = 126) and lesson observations (N = 10) and an analysis of documents and student work. Product analysis is widely used at different points in design projects but, as is shown, in all cases current practice can lead to fixation, as thinking is constrained down specific paths and tasks are at best at procedural rather than comprehension level. The implications of these findings and tentative ways forward for practitioners are discussed.     

Platform couriers' self-exploitation: The case study of Glovo

This article examines the phenomenon of self-exploitation among platform couriers, using the company Glovo as a case study. The research, based on a qualitative approach with interviews from 22 different stakeholders, highlights the ways in which precarity, entrepreneurial subjectivity, and gamification intersect to create what are referred to as postdisciplinary control mechanisms. These mechanisms shift the locus of exploitation from the employer to the workers' inner selves, which are compelled to follow implicit guidelines due to their precarious situation. The use of algorithmic management by platform companies like Glovo plays a major role in this architecture marked by overwork, exposure to hazardous conditions, and economic dependence. The article urges policymakers to look beyond platform workers' employment status debate and address the design of algorithms and broader forms of labour precarity, so that policies that successfully improve workers' experience are designed.     

Platform capitalism and neo-normative control: “Autonomy” as a digital platform control strategy in neoliberal Chile

A key element of the platform business model is concentrating great organisational power over the work process while simultaneously allowing workers certain degrees of autonomy and encouraging them to see themselves as self-employed. This study applied the neo-normative control concept to analyse the mechanisms platforms use to promote freedom of choice and self-regulation values, which are formed extra-organisationally in deeply neoliberal societies such as Chile. The Uber ride-hailing and Pedidos Ya home delivery platforms in Chile were examined using a labour process theory framework based on an ethnographic design. The results show the specific ways in which these platforms deploy forms of neo-normative control, how this deployment is anchored in the labour context of neoliberal Chilean society, and how workers re-signify, stress, or seek to subvert this control strategy. The findings' theoretical and empirical implications are discussed.     

Algorithmic management in food-delivery platform economy in China

This article investigates the organisation of work under algorithmic control in the platform economy. Based on a 1-year ethnographic study conducted at top food-delivery platforms in China, this study finds two main mechanisms for organising labour under algorithmic management: the virtual organisation of labour and algorithm-driven labour process control. First, platform drivers are reorganised in an outsourced labour force, placed in application-based virtual-networked production under sophisticated technological infrastructure. Second, to habituate drivers to the virtual mode of production, food-delivery platforms utilise four algorithm-driven control techniques, which are identified as: smart machinery control, information monopoly, management by multi-stakeholders, and ‘carrots and sticks’. The findings highlight the process of algorithmic design in configuring a digital managerial ecosystem for platform governance and contribute to emerging debates on algorithmic management.     

Blocked and New Frontiers for Trade Unions: Contesting ‘the Meaning of Work’ in the Creative and Caring Sectors

Many jobs feature tensions between workers’ own motivations, and the objectives imposed on them by management or economic imperatives. We call these tensions ‘meaning of work conflicts’. We ask whether trade unions can intervene in them, or whether they are simply too subjective to be a credible campaigning focus. We examine two professional groups in Britain and France, musicians and healthcare staff. Among musicians, workers tend to negotiate meaning of work conflicts themselves, seeing little role for unions in this process. This engenders legitimacy problems that unions have had to find ways around. By contrast, in the hospitals sector, there is more scope for unions to campaign over the meaning of work, thus potentially increasing legitimacy among staff and the public. The difference is explained by the more diffuse and fragmented nature of employer structures in music, and the more chaotic set of motivations found among music workers.     

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

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.     

Microtargeting control: Explicating algorithmic control and nudges in platform‐mediated cab driving in India

We discuss algorithmic control and nudges prevalent in the gig economy in relation to extant management control literature. We draw on an analysis of archival data and interviews with drivers and executives of app‐based cab companies in India. Comparing algorithmic control with direct control, we explain the increase in the scale and scope of automation that enables detailed driver profiling and segmentation, which is crucial for microtargeting control mechanisms and controlling driver earnings. Explaining nudges vis‐a‐vis indirect control, we highlight the role of mental processes and clarify the labelling of control mechanisms as nudges. Furthermore, we show how nudges are interwoven into algorithmic control as they capitalise on and feed into it. We also substantiate the discussions on information asymmetry by explicating the calculative apparatus that underlies the asymmetry.     

Organizational knowledge networks and local search: The role of intra‐organizational inventor networks

Research summary : While firms tend to build on their own knowledge, we distinguish between depth and breadth of local search to investigate the drivers of these behaviors. Given that inventors in a firm carry out the knowledge creation activities, we strive to identify inventors responsible for these behaviors by employing the notion of an intra‐firm inventor network. A longitudinal examination of 14,575 inventors from four large semiconductor firms using patent data supports our hypotheses that the reach of inventors in the intra‐firm network and their span of structural holes have independent and interactive effects on these two types of local search behaviors. These findings have implications for research on exploitation and exploration, organizational knowledge, knowledge networks, and micro‐foundations. Managerial summary : Large amounts of knowledge may reside within firm boundaries, and managers are interested in understanding who may leverage this knowledge to generate novel ideas. We focus on collaborations among knowledge workers to address this question. Using the collaborations among all knowledge workers in a firm, we show that those who have higher reach to all others and those who form bridges to connect unconnected groups of workers tend to leverage not only more organizational knowledge, but also knowledge that is more dispersed in the organization. Managers could use these insights to shape the use of organizational knowledge by firm inventors, and also to make decisions about granting or withholding access to internal knowledge platforms for knowledge workers. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘It's like,instant respect’: Coworking spaces as identity anchoring environments in the new economy

As employment relationships become more tenuous, as work grows increasingly virtual and as professional reputations circulate across online platforms, coworking provides individuals across various work arrangements with shared workspaces oriented towards sociability, visibility and convenience. Our study explores how coworking spaces also enable individuals to shape their professional identities while providing other important attributes of work to help it feel embodied and grounded. Drawing from interviews and surveys of members of a large coworking chain across the United States, we find that coworking spaces serve as identity anchoring environments. We find that many workers use material elements of the space to ground their professional identities in three ways: evidencing professional credibility, enacting a common ethos and energising connections with others. More broadly, we also find that coworking operators package and sell the physical, spatial and symbolic aspects of work to help certain workers signal their professional selves.     

A behavioural measure of information work

Information work is defined from a behavioural perspective, as the manipulation of information, when performed by workers. A set of activities characterizing information work are identified, drawing on Blooms Taxonomy as the reference source. Using this measure, the 1977 Dictionary of Occupation Titles was content analysed to identify those occupations which could be behaviourally classified as information work. 40% of all occupations were determined to be informational in work behaviour. These occupations were found across all sectors, although they were concentrated in the service sector. Many occupations, old and new, have taken on an informational character.     

Broadcasting discontent—freelancers, trade unions and the Internet

This paper examines the potential of web-based networks for representing the interests of freelance audio-visual workers. It suggests that while such networks provide fora for the expression and mobilisation of interests, their ability to represent workers is limited. Consequently, they provide an opportunity for trade unions to extend organisation.     

Direct Labor Market Effects of Unemployment Insurance

It has been established that relatively high income families receive a disproportionately large share of UI benefits. Little information on the distribution of costs by income class is available, but it is quite possible that the upper income groups may also bear a disproportionately large share of the costs. More empirical research is needed before the redistributive effects of UI can be known with any degree of confidence. There is little argument about the desirability on income mainlenance grounds of extending Unemployment insurance benefits in a recessionary period, all other things being equal. U1 is quite efficient as an income maintenance tool for covered workers. With respect to the unemployment problem, though, it is feared by some that the program goes too far in maintaining the incomes of covered workers, and as a result any extension of UI benefits will aggravate the unemployment problem. The evidence presented here suggests that fears of a major increase in unemployment as a result of such changes are largely unwarranted. However, extended UI benefits would appear to have some small, nontrivial adverse impact on unemployment. Finally, it seems that UI's income distributional impact has been portrayed unjustly as pro-rich. It may be that income is transferred through the UI system from the relatively well-to-do to the relatively poor. There is no scientific way of bringing these considerations to bear in deciding whether or not to restructure the unemployment insurance system. This question can be answered only by invoking fundamental value judgments to decide how sociely would be better off, and I would not presume here to offer my own. This paper will have served its purpose if it has provided the basis for a more informed decision.     

Managerial Control of Employees Working at Home

Places of work constitute processes of management by facilitating ‘visibility’ (the possibility for supervisors and others to observe workers) and ‘presence’ (the ability for workers to participate in relations with co‐workers and others). Working at home creates problems for both these aspects of managerial control. We suggest that managers seek to compensate for the relative lack of visibility and presence of home‐located workers by generating a range of devices and social disciplines that together comprise loose networks of control. However, these responses are only partially successful since they are founded on contradictory assumptions and practices.     

Spanning the Union/Nonunion Boundary

Conflicts between the work boundaries established by union contracts and management's interest in efficient work flows have increased sharply as new technology and new management practices make traditional divisions in the organization of work obsolete. We use concepts from organizational theory to examine these conflicts and an innovative attempt to resolve them by defining union boundaries not on the basis of tasks performed, but rather on the basis of employment; the union contract applies to specific workers instead of job titles. This system provides greater flexibility and autonomy for employees, and the results of an attitude survey suggest that it is strongly preferred by workers who feel constrained by traditional union contracts.     

The Determinants of Performance Appraisal Systems: A Note (Do Brown and Heywood's Results for Australia Hold Up for Britain?)

This article offers a replication for Britain of Brown and Heywood's analysis of the determinants of performance appraisal in Australia. Although there are some important limiting differences between our two datasets — the Australia Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (AWIRS) and the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) — we reach one central point of agreement and one intriguing shared insight. First, performance appraisal is negatively associated with tenure: where employers cannot rely on the carrot of deferred pay or the stick of dismissal to motivate workers, they will tend to rely more on monitoring, ceteris paribus. Second, employer monitoring and performance pay may be complementary. However, consonant with the disparate results from the wider literature, there is more modest agreement on the contribution of specific human resource management practices, and still less on the role of job control.     

Economic and strategic considerations surrounding Chinese FDI in the United States

The growth of outward investment from China has generated expressions of concern from policymakers in the United States regarding the economic and national security impacts of such investments. While inward foreign direct investment (FDI) has come to be viewed by most observers as generally imparting net economic benefits to the host economy, acquisitions of US companies by Chinese multinational companies (MNCs) have been criticized on several grounds. One is based on the mode of entry itself: some critics believe that entry by acquisition brings lower benefits than greenfield entry. A second and more prominent concern is that acquisitions of US companies by Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) may be motivated by non-commercial objectives which, in turn, make those acquisitions of questionable value to the host economy. In this paper, we argue that Chinese FDI in the United States is more likely to take the form of acquisitions than greenfield investments for the foreseeable future. However, there is no strong case to be made that the host country economic benefits from Chinese FDI would be larger if entry took place primarily through greenfield investments. Furthermore, most of the alleged costs to the US economy from inward FDI from China are either unlikely to occur or are already anticipated by existing US laws and regulations, thus necessitating no additional, specific legislation.

A Primordial Attachment to the Nation? French and Irish Workers and Trade Unions in Past EU Referendum Debates

We aim to contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics that are driving EU politicization and the rising Euroscepticism of workers and unions in the public sphere. One explanation frames the rise in Euroscepticism in cultural terms, emphasizing workers’ alleged primordial attachment to their nation. A second uses socioeconomic frames, linking growing Euroscepticism to the increasingly neo‐liberal direction of the EU. The weight of these competing frames in the referendum campaigns on the EU Constitution in France and the Lisbon Treaty and the Fiscal Treaty in Ireland cannot be measured easily, as the categorization of a phrase as socioeconomic or cultural is in itself subject to political classification struggles. We therefore presents the findings of an inductive lexical analysis of all Irish Times, all Le Monde and all worker‐ or union‐related articles published in almost all national media outlets during the mentioned referendum debates. This was made possible by the Alceste software package that allowed us to analyse very large corpuses of articles inductively. Our analysis reveals that socioeconomic terms dominated policy debates in both countries. The findings question existing EU politicization studies that were measuring the salience of different frame types by deductive analysis.     

Urgency at work: Trains,time and technology

In contemporary workplaces, urgency is symbolic of workers' experience of time as accelerated, and often associated with use of digital technologies. Yet we know little about how urgency is constructed at work, including the agentic roles of technology and other materialities. Based on interviews with railway workers, we extend Rosa's conceptualisation of temporal junctures to explain how urgency as a temporal framing is sociomaterially constituted, sustained and challenged across and between workers and their managers, particularly through smartphone-use. Our analysis extends existing thinking on temporality at work by demonstrating how urgency narratives at sociomaterially complex configurations of temporal junctures shield workers, managers and the organisation against the temporal fragility of the rail infrastructure, such that each narration of urgency carries forward an illusion of temporal control.     

Flexibility in the gig economy: managing time on three online piecework platforms

Gig economy platforms seem to provide extreme temporal flexibility to workers, giving them full control over how to spend each hour and minute of the day. What constraints do workers face when attempting to exercise this flexibility? We use 30 worker interviews and other data to compare three online piecework platforms with different histories and worker demographics: Mechanical Turk, MobileWorks, and CloudFactory. We find that structural constraints (availability of work and degree of worker dependence on the work) as well as cultural‐cognitive constraints (procrastination and presenteeism) limit worker control over scheduling in practice. The severity of these constraints varies significantly between platforms, the formally freest platform presenting the greatest structural and cultural‐cognitive constraints. We also find that workers have developed informal practices, tools, and communities to address these constraints. We conclude that focusing on outcomes rather than on worker control is a more fruitful way to assess flexible working arrangements.