The spatiality of collective action and organization among platform workers in Spain and Chile

Abstract

The expansion of the platform economy has altered the spatial organization of work and employment relations, leading to deregulation and eroding workers’ social power. However, despite the radical individualization and precarization of platform work, workers demonstrate agency. This article explores the political strategies employed by place-based platform workers, with a particular focus on the spatiality of their collective action. Using an ethnographic methodology, the article analyses the case studies of drivers’ trade associations in Chile and the couriers’ organization in Spain. The results show significant similarities between the two groups: (a) non-conventional forms of labour activism; (b) using social media to share experiences, foster solidarity and organize collectively; (c) organizing in large cities; (d) starting locally and progressing to higher scales, and (e) building national and international alliances. The article concludes that workers respond to the spatial organization of work by platforms in a multi-scalar way that is strongly influenced by both their imaginaries and the political and regulatory context.

Book Review: Left to our own devices: Coping with insecure work in a digital age by Ticona Julia

“…The fourth chapter identifies forms of resistance, including how low-income workers adopt a flexible absent presence to resist managerial control, while high-income workers intentionally abstain from technology usage to limit affective engagement. This differentiation from collective labor resistance, as discussed by various scholars (e.g., Morales-Muñoz & Roca, 2022;Wood et al, 2023), underscores the notion that technologies can serve as the "weapon of the weak" (p. 87), especially for contingent workers. The concluding chapter offers a critical reflection on interrogating the influences of broader institutions and sociotechnical systems on inequalities in the gig economy.…”

The multiple geographies of constrained labour agency

“…Bandura (2006) might frame this in terms of the intentionality and foresight that are necessary components of human agency, with the former referring to people having plans and aspirations for their future, and the latter capturing the expected outcomes that motivate action. In the words of Moralez-Muñoz and Roca (2022: 1412), this is about workers as ‘geographical actors whose agency is mediated by collective imaginaries about space’. As the brevity of this section suggests, however, this is perhaps the least appreciated and most suggestive of our four moments at the time of writing.…”

“…Returning to the model, we can locate these geographies of labour agency in the T2–T3 sequence of Figure 1, but in a reflexive relationship to T1 (interpreting conditions) and T2 (predicting or seeking outcomes). Tracing these modes of reasoning into their practiced spatial expressions – from individual responses to algorithmic spatial fixes (Barratt, 2020) and the multiscalar strategies of couriers and drivers in Chile and Spain (Moralez-Muñoz and Roca, 2022), to the transnational networks of palm oil worker migrants (Pye, 2017) – has been one of the core strengths of the labour geography literature.…”

Moral mobilization in the digital space: Seafarers exercising agency during the pandemic

“…Casualized and spatially isolated workers include not only seafarers but also many other occupational groups, such as those working in the platform economy, a relatively new sector. Recently, the agency of platform economy workers has received increased research attention and the literature shows that these workers make use of social media to overcome isolation and exercise agency in various spaces and a range of ways depending on the work and employment context (Anwar and Graham, 2020; Johnston, 2020; Morales-Muñoz and Roca, 2022; Wells et al, 2021). Against this backdrop, Anwar and Graham (2020) point out that workers’ use of social media provides a new perspective for understanding labour agency.…”