The failure of traditional trade unions to organize precarious workers in the informal sector, attend migrant workers, and the gig economy, partly because of the sole dependence on class-based universalistic approach and changing nature of work and workspace (Kulkarni & Datta, 2024), also invited an outcry for trade union revitalization and rethinking of strategies (Bensusán, 2019; Fine, 2011). This also led to experimentation of new forms of labour organizing for collective bargaining and worker representation, including the worker centres among immigrant labourers (community-based labour mediation and support institutions), worker associations and networks, informal unionism, hybrid and networked unionism, social movement unionism, forming different kinds of cooperatives (Chesta et al., 2019; Dhar & Thuppilikkat, 2022; Marrone & Finotto, 2019; Salvagni et al., 2022; Thuppilikkat et al., 2024; Webster & Forrest, 2019; Webster et al., 2021). Many of these new forms of unionism have challenged hierarchical leadership structures and reevaluated the role of external organizers, a practice that traditional trade unions typically adhered to. Furthermore, some of the emerging associational formations of workers did not even formally engage in collective bargaining with employers (Mosco, 2008, pp. 33–35), and focused on issues beyond the workplace. Recent studies, particularly on digital labour platforms, exploring cases outside of digital labour platforms, have also highlighted that migrant identities and ethnic connections play a key role in fostering cultures of solidarity and collective action, both online and offline (Zhou, 2024; Zhou & Pun, 2024). Grohmann et al. (2023) identified how WhatsApp groups of Brazilian riders in the UK, built on shared ethnicity, foster digital spaces for DLP workers to address work issues and organize collective action. Similarly, studies have highlighted how migrant status generates shared experiences, fosters communities, and even enables resistance (Mendonça et al., 2022). In this context, researchers have called for exploring migration as a source of workers’ social power, examining its strength and limitations (Zhou, 2024).
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