Platform Workers: When Mutual Aid Becomes a Trap

In a context where media and trade union representatives are giving greater visibility to workers on unskilled and call on the state to recognize their rights (especially for employees, but also for social protection) seem to be online courier discussion groups spaces where a revolution could be organized.

However, our study shows that the immense majority of discussions observed in these systems actually concern employees’ everyday problems. Far from cafe on rue de Paon 18th century revolutionaries^{to me} For centuries, internet discussion groups, even if “secret” and used in encrypted applications such as Telegram, remain primarily places where couriers discuss good working practices.

From 26 months of ethnographic research, including observations of discussion groups on social media (Facebook, Telegram) and forty interviews with cooked food providers who were users of these groups, our the results debunk the myth : this is not the time for bayonets for these precarious workers whose priority is paying the bills.

Payment by task

These operational exchanges, necessary to have any hope of generating regular and sufficient income from their platform activities, allow Uberized workers to better tolerate unsatisfactory working conditions.

For these people, the urgent need is to learn how to cope with the many constraints that hinder their activities: how to cope with the administrative procedures related to the status of a micro-entrepreneur when the delivery of cooked meals is not expected for a long time – a long-term entrepreneurial project? How to understand the functioning of murky algorithms coordinating remote work, when the only training was very basic? And how to cope with unforeseen events (accidents, problems with orders, restaurateurs or customers) when local management is restricted to handling services transferred to other continents?

Not only do platforms fail to support workers in controlling their daily activities, but the algorithms they implement tend to erase any possibility of collective face-to-face work.

A few years ago, these suppliers would happily meet at strategic locations in city centers to wait for orders and talk together. from Foodora in 2018 and timely repayment, it is already more arduous: it is better to wait in distraction to receive orders quickly, because only the task counts. The same applies to restaurants: algorithms are now advanced enough to eliminate waiting times as much as possible and ensure even faster delivery to the customer.

The search for collectives and mutual assistance has therefore moved to the Internet through the creation of free and independently managed discussion groups by Uberized employees. The mass nature of these Internet groups, with several hundred or even thousands of members, as well as the diversity of their members’ profiles (in terms of socio-professional paths, work experience, geographic dispersion, etc.) turn out to be advantages for mutual assistance and learning a profession.

These features actually boost the complementarity of exchanges: in a very heterogeneous group of 2,000 members, you will always find someone who has the answer to your problem. For example, you boost the probability of meeting a former IT freelancer who has acquired some knowledge of the microenterprise administration system and who can assist you in your efforts.

Our study shows that the very functionality of digital tools stimulates the embedding of this learning: on the one hand, their immediate nature means that any question is usually answered in less than an hour, and on the other hand, automatic archiving promotes the accumulation of shared knowledge over time. As a result, digital tools allow dynamic couriers to share information efficiently, and more passive couriers to benefit from the exchange, even without participating.

Hyper-meritocratic logic

However, these self-organizing digital solutions are not emancipatory at all and contribute to the perpetuation of a deeply unequal system in which uberized workers, excluded from labor law, feel the full brunt of power asymmetries, above all unilateral price change at increasingly lower levels.

By playing in the gray zone between autonomy and employment, platforms encourage workers, despite their distrust of them, to make extra efforts to learn how to do their jobs on their own. As such, online support groups only anchor and reflect the institutional and socioeconomic relations of domination that weigh on platform workers.

They encourage us to cling to the myth of the self-entrepreneur who, with a bit of intelligence or malice, could do it use the hyper-meritocratic logic of platforms. According to this myth, based on piece-rate pay, only the most “deserving” could maximize revenue on platforms… Defined by their ability to adhere to the standards and mandates of both platforms and other platforms.

Perhaps a reminder that detachment from prescriptions has been demonstrated does not always equal resistancethat cynicism and the development of good practices are not enough to erect barricades. In this case, autonomy and self-entrepreneurship rather drive the gears of the hegemonic platform economy.