Ride Hailing Regulations in Cali, Colombia: Towards Autonomous and Decent Work

Abstract

In this article we explore the decent work standard developed by Richard Heeks for digital online labour markets and use a review of empirical research about ride-hailing to adapt this framework to the location-based service delivery market. The framework is then tested against an in-depth analysis of informality and precarity in the ride hailing sector in Cali, Colombia. Findings show that location-based platform workers in Cali lack many decent work protections. However, the case study also demonstrates that workers are evolving creative ways to grapple with specific aspects of precarity within the ride-hailing sector. Based on this analysis, we argue that policy analysis and worker innovations need to 'meet in the middle' rather than follow policy recommendations emanating from other jurisdictions. We suggest some specific policy reforms that will be appropriate to the Colombian and Latin American context.

Proteus Looks Around: Agency, Time, and Context in a Gig Economy Career Analysis

“…Studies carried out in developing countries where ride hailing is becoming an important labor market reinforce the need to broaden the understanding of the gig economy's growing phenomenon. Reilly and Lozano-Paredes (2019) investigate the Colombian context, where informality exceeds 48% in Cali. Kashyap and Bhatia (2018) point out the segment's growth for companies like Ola and Uber in Delhi, in India, highlighting the poor working conditions of a labor market as a backdrop that reveals traits of great precariousness and vulnerability.…”

Seeing the "Changing Nature of Work" through a Precarity Lens

“…Research here has started to reveal some of the broader consequences of digitalisation, stretching beyond a preoccupation with the nature of digital employment in and of itself. Recent studies of digital ridehailing, for example, highlight how the "Uber-isation" of urban transport systems affects not just the lives and livelihoods of newly connected digital workers but also wider dynamics within (and even beyond) the sector, as the following examples show: new patterns of asset ownership, rent accumulation and extractive activity rewire the nature of local labour relations and development (see Carmody and Fortuin [2019] and Pollio [2019] on Cape Town); traditional or "analogue" taxi drivers respond in diverse ways to rising app-based competition, from subtle forms of everyday politics (see Turner and Hanh [2019] on Hanoi) to more explosive deployments of violence and intimidation (see Danielak [2019] on Johannesburg); and reciprocal networks providing a modicum of social security find themselves splintering under the weight of renewed labour force fragmentation (see Rekhviashvili and Sgibnev [2018] on Bishkek and Tbilisi; Reilly and Lozano-Paredes [2019] on Cali). Writing in relation to Nairobi's informal motorcycle-taxi (or boda boda) sector, anthropologists Ibrahim and Bize (2018: 87) propose that the emergence of ride-hailing apps "presents the greatest threat to the future of associational life as a source of labour solidarity", as the physical and social infrastructure of the taxi stand loses relevance and the "idle time" previously used to build relationships slowly evaporates.…”