Digital Labor Platforms: A study of Workplace Resistance and Unionization in India and Canada

Summary

The project aims to analyze and document workers’ workplace resistance and unionization practices in digital labour platforms in Canada and India, develop context-appropriate resistance strategies for technology-mediated labour and re-design algorithmic technologies to support precarious workers.

Description

The emergence of digital labour platforms (DLPs) is transforming labouring experiences worldwide. While these platforms offer flexibility and convenience regarding work time and workspace, they also contribute to workers’ insecurity and vulnerability due to the misrecognition of labour and opaque algorithms that manage their work conditions (algorithmic management). This project primarily evaluates how algorithmic management shapes and impacts the workers in digital labour platforms (e.g. Cab riders, delivery workers and beauty and home services) in India and Canada. Further, we document the workers’ experiences negotiating algorithmic management in DLPs and their efforts to resist precarious employment conditions through collective organizing, which involves everyday resistance practices, the formation of worker communities and unionism. Through qualitative research methods (ethnography, participant observation, in-depth interviews and focused group discussion), we aim to develop context-appropriate resistance strategies for technology-mediated labour and re-design algorithmic technologies to create fairer and more equitable labour practices of incorporating principles of fairness, transparency and worker participation. Our research sites include New Delhi, West Bengal, Mumbai and Kerala in India, Malta and Toronto in Canada.

Updates

April 2023 Status Update
Submitted for Peer-review

Papers

1) Dhar, Dipsita, and Ashique Ali Thuppilikkat. ‘Gendered Labour’s Positions of Vulnerabilities in Digital Labour Platforms and Strategies of Resistance: A Case Study of Women Workers’ Struggle in Urban Company, New Delhi’. Gender & Development 30, no. 3 (December 2022): 667–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2022.2127574

Conferences

1) Thuppilikkat, Ashique, Dipsita Dhar and Priyank Chandra. ‘Tech-mediated Resistance and Traditional Trade Union: A Case Study of Kolkata App Cab Ola Uber Union, West Bengal’. British Sociology Association’s Work, Employment and Society Conference 2023, Glasgow on 13-15 September 2023.

2) Thuppilikkat, Ashique, Dipsita Dhar and Priyank Chandra. ‘Union Makes Us Strong: Experiences of Traditional Trade Union Organizing in Ride Sharing Digital Labour Platforms in Kolkata, West Bengal’. British Sociology Association’s Work, Employment and Society Conference 2023, Glasgow on 13-15 September 2023.

3) Dhar, Dipsita, and Ashique Ali Thuppilikkat. ‘Gender and Intersectional Inequalities Within Workplace Resistance Discourses’. British Sociology Association’s Work, Employment and Society Conference 2023, Glasgow on 13-15 September 2023.

4) Dhar, Dipsita, and Ashique Ali Thuppilikkat. ‘The Survival Strategy among the Malayali Diaspora in Malta: Negotiating through the GiG Economy.’ Second Athens Historical Materialism Conference, Panteion University, Athens on 20-23 April 2023.

5) Dhar, Dipsita, Soham Bhattacharya, and Ashique Ali Thuppilikkat. ‘Understanding Gig Economy & Socially Reproductive Labour: A Case Study from India.’ 41st International Labour Process Conference (ILPC 2023), Glasgow on 12 - 14 April 2023.