The lose-lose dilemmas of Barcelona’s platform delivery workers in the age of COVID-19

Vieira, Tiago

doi:10.1016/j.ssaho.2020.100059

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…These services are considered essential and their workers move freely, while many jobs have been lost and the population is advised to stay at home. Pandemic labor research is still trying to identify the factors that determine that in times of crisis the rules cannot be applied equally to everyone [42]. Preliminary conclusions would be that employment or economic security does not determine the immunity of human beings.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Romanian Labor Market

et al. 2020

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The present research aims to establish the impact that the current crisis situation the planet is facing, namely the COVID-19 pandemic, has had so far on the Romanian labor force market. In this context, given the lack of information and information regarding this pandemic and its effects, the administration of a questionnaire among the population was considered to identify the research results. The method of semantic differential and the method of ordering the ranks were used for the interpretation of the results. With the help of this questionnaire, it will be possible to answer the question of the research in this study: What are the main effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Romanian labor market? The main results showed that the COVID-19 pandemic affected the Romanian workforce; the respondents of the applied questionnaire claimed that they obtained better results and maintained a similar income, but the health crisis also influenced the mentality of employees, with respondents stating that in the event of changing jobs, they would consider it very important for the new employer to ensure the conditions for preventing and combating COVID-19, as well as complex health insurance. However, analyzing at the macroeconomic level, it was found that the COVID-19 pandemic induced an increase in the number of unemployed people in the Romanian labor market.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Romanian Labor Market

et al. 2020

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“…There has been a lot of research on food delivery platforms in the last couple of years, especially in times of COVID (Vieira 2020). Many methods are put forward to look at how riders negotiate and create urban spaces within platform capitalism (Heiland 2021; Woodcock 2021).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Citizen‐rentier‐ship: Delivering the Undocumented to Labour Platforms in Paris

Baril

2023

Antipode

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Platform food delivery workers have been under much scrutiny over the last couple of years. Undocumented riders, and their recent strikes and protests in France, have not received as much attention as other issues regarding platform labour (contract work, algorithmic control, surveillance). This article follows fieldwork conducted in Paris and interviews with food couriers. Building on work by critical urban studies, migration studies and science and technology studies, this research puts forward citizen‐rentier‐ship, a tool to understand how multiple parties profit from aspects of precarious status. Interviews with undocumented couriers who worked in Paris highlight how the subletting of accounts, the complicit role of the state, the hypocrisy of employers and the interdependency with the “regularised” put undocumented couriers in hyper‐precarious situations. This article concludes that labour laws, misclassification and migration policies are at the centre of the struggles of Paris’ delivery workers and that they need changes.

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“…Indeed, such job quality dimensions have been the focus of much of the recent sociological and industrial relations literature on remote (e.g., Wood et al, 2019) and on‐location labour platforms (Goods et al, 2019). More generally, studies focusing explicitly on riders in advanced economies point out that the business model of food delivery platforms is based on imposing flexibility, insecurity and precarity on their workforce (e.g., Rosin, 2022; Vieira, 2020).…”

Section: Platform Work and Job Qualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Uncertainty in working hour schemes, uncompensated waiting times and performance‐based allocation to shifts (Heiland, 2022) directly impact the predictability and security of earnings (Riordan et al, 2023; Vandaele et al, 2019). Earnings insecurity, and more generally unpredictable and low earnings, are further exacerbated by the fact that food delivery platforms often do not provide riders with guaranteed remuneration but instead operate with variable piece‐rates (Kusk & Bossen, 2022; Veen et al, 2020; Vieira, 2020), and often riders must cover extra costs for equipment, maintenance and work‐related risks, which reduce their take‐home pay (Goods et al, 2019).…”

Section: Platform Work and Job Qualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Predictability and transparency of working conditions for food delivery platform workers across selected EU countries

Leschke,

Scheele

2024

Soc Policy Adm

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While prior research has demonstrated the poor and unpredictable working conditions and ambiguous working arrangements characteristic of platform‐based food delivery, we lack research on the question of how well these workers are informed about essential aspects of their work, including protection of their rights, working time and schedules, and earnings. Comprehensive and transparent information on working conditions at an early stage is indispensable if workers are to be able to make informed decisions on taking up work and, where relevant, investing in equipment and exercising rights linked to a specific job. Drawing on the multi‐dimensional job quality literature, this article focuses on digital labour platforms in the food delivery sector across four countries: Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. We exploit firm‐level variations, including with regard to the types of work arrangements used and the application—or not—of collective agreements. We draw on information provided to riders during the application process prior to the start of employment, including via websites and FAQs, as well as scrutiny of contracts, service agreements and collective bargaining agreements, where relevant. This information is complemented with interviews with trade union representatives. Our findings point to the relationship between a firm's choice of employment status and form of contract, on one hand, and the predictability and transparency of information provided to workers, on the other. Differences and similarities in such information seem to be more strongly bound to firm‐level decisions than to the welfare and industrial relations regimes in which the platform companies operate.

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The lose-lose dilemmas of Barcelona’s platform delivery workers in the age of COVID-19

Cited by 10 publications

References 9 publications

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Romanian Labor Market

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Romanian Labor Market

Citizen‐rentier‐ship: Delivering the Undocumented to Labour Platforms in Paris

Predictability and transparency of working conditions for food delivery platform workers across selected EU countries

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