Labour geographies of the platform economy: Understanding collective organizing strategies in the context of digitally mediated work

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ilr.12154
• Published date: 01 March 2020
• Date: 01 March 2020
• Author: Hannah JOHNSTON

International Labour Review, Vol. 159 (2020), No. 1

Copyright © The author 2020

Journal compi lation © Intern ational Lab our Organi zation 2020

*

 Department of Geography and Planning, Queen’s University, Ontario, email: 8hesj@queensu.ca.

This article was written while the author was a Technical Ocer in the Research Department of

the ILO. The author would like to thank Uma Rani, Chris Land-Kazlauskas, John Holmes and three

anonymous reviewers for their comments and feedback on earlier versions of this article.

Responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles rests solely with their authors, and

publication does not constitute an endorsement by the ILO.

Labour geographies of the platform

economy: Understanding collective

organizing strategies in the context

of digitally mediated work

Hannah JOHNSTON*

Abstract. The article examines the geographies of collective labour struggle in the

platform economy. It distinguishes between the unique spatial features associated

with place-based work and crowdwork to examine the divergent collective organ-

izing strategies developed therein. Taking works councils, collective bargaining and

multi-enterprise agreements as three examples of social dialogue, the article con-

siders why dierent types of platform workers gravitate towards particular strat-

egies, analyses the regulatory frameworks within which these workers’ collective

struggles are bound, and assesses the propensity for these expressions of solidar-

ity to improve the terms and conditions of platform work.

Keywords: labour geography, platform economy, collective bargaining, social

dialogue, future of work.

The emergence of digital platforms presents distinctive geographic features to

which workers’ collective organizing eorts must respond. While much of the

quotidian work facilitated by digital labour platforms is not new, jobs are being

organized in new ways. For workers seeking to inuence the terms and condi-

tions under which they labour, trends including high levels of precarity, work-

place fragmentation, digitization, and self-employment have been catalysts for

collective organization.

The platform economy is proving to be the most recent chapter in the la-

bour movement’s long history of renewal, wherein collective organizing models

have been successively adapted to better respond to changes in the organiza-

tional management of work. In each instance, expressions of worker solidarity

International Labour Review

26

– be they trade unions, worker centres, guilds, or others – have had a geog-

raphy. During the Industrial Revolution, for example, technological innovation

reshaped workplaces, centralizing production and deskilling labour through

assembly lines and automation. Workers responded by changing the architec-

ture and composition of their collective organizations. Formerly dominant craft

unions, characterized by highly and homogeneously skilled craft workers, gave

way to industrial unions where workers with varied occupations united on the

basis of their common employer (Visser, 20 12). Later, in regions like North Amer-

ica and parts of Europe, bargaining was decentralized to the rm level (rather

than remaining centrally coordinated at a national or industry level) to accom-

modate employers’ need for international and exible production (Eaton and

Kriesky, 1998; Hendricks and Kahn, 1982). In response, industrial unions devel-

oped strategies like pattern bargaining in order to leverage their power more

eectively in dispersed yet entwined production systems (Eaton and Kriesky,

1998; Holmes, 2004).

The growth of the service sector in the 198 0s and 1990s similarly ushered in

a host of trade union innovations (Wial, 1993). Responding to changes in worker

demographics and the trend towards greater fragmentation of the workplace,

concepts like community unionism emerged to unite workers on the basis of

shared identity or residency (Black, 2005 ). In these cases, unions sometimes

reached beyond their own membership, and tried to furnish local residents with

employer-provided commitments to local hiring, training or other community

initiatives (Tufts, 2016). While each of these congurations exhibited dierent

spatial features, workers’ organizations remained resolved that by removing

wages and working conditions from competition, workers would be in a better

position to shape economic landscapes pursuant to their own interests (rather

than to those of capital). This goal persists in the era of digital labour platforms.

Though the content of work performed on and through digital labour plat-

forms is extremely heterogeneous, two distinct patterns have emerged regarding

how platform-facilitated work is spatially organized: “crowdwork” and “work-

on-demand via apps” (De Stefano, 2016). Crowdwork takes place online and can

connect vast numbers of customers and workers across large distances. Tasks

associated with this type of work include translation, data entry and product

reviews, and many jobs can be broken down into micro-tasks for distribution

among large groups of workers (Berg et al., 20 18). As digitally based work, these

jobs can often be completed from anywhere provided workers have sucient

Internet connectivity. Crowdworkers thus hail from vastly dierent geographies

and are thrown into the same labour market that is “both xed in a distinct

digital location, and simultaneously accessible from anywhere” (Graham, 201 5,

p. 870), creating the illusion of a planetary workforce (Graham and Anwar,

2019). Work-on-demand via apps (herein, place-based work), on the other hand,

is platform-facilitated but geographically bound – or, as Huws (2014) puts it,

“geographically sticky”. Workers and customers are connected via platforms,

but tasks are performed in person and cannot be easily oshored (e.g. domestic

work, food delivery, grocery shopping and transportation services).

Building on the concepts of crowdwork and place-based work, this article

examines the distinct geographies of platform workers’ collective organizing re-

sponses. It highlights three dierent social dialogue strategies that workers have