euros, but they usually end up with no more than 20 euros in their hands”. And he continues: “Labor authorities conduct intensive inspections in agricultural cooperatives, but they rarely visit food processing factories, despite numerous labour law violations and undeclared work occurring there”.
7 Conclusions
The standard employment relationship is a historically contingent and geographically specific construct, built on preconditions that no longer exist. Modern pressures such as financialization and digitalization especially in Europe and the USA contribute to the fragmentation of employment structures, increasing differentiation and inequality (Weil, 2014). Consequently, the once ‘standard’ model of employment is now exceptional, underscoring the evolving dynamics of contemporary labour markets. Nevertheless, context still matters.
In the case of Greece, austerity memorandum agreements throughout the 2010s resulted in the recommodification of labour and the further erosion of collective bargaining structures along with a profound job crisis. Therefore, the potential for new job opportunities arising from the expansion of the gig economy should not be underestimated, particularly for a country with one of Europe’s highest unemployment rates. This partly explains why recent legal interventions and discussions on the gig economy have focused mainly on tax-related matters while overlooking pressing labour issues (Mexi, 2019).
In this context, migrants, alongside other vulnerable workforce groups such as women and young workers, have historically constituted the foundation of zones marked by vulnerability and marginalization in Greece. As explained in the analysis, research on migrant labour within the Greek labour market reveals a prevalent trend of collective inaction and reliance on individual coping strategies to manage precarity and insecurity. Migrant labour has not integrated into broader progressive movements nor developed a distinct resistance project against precarity. Despite certain efforts, collective actors such as trade unions and political parties have failed to provide adequate spaces and mechanisms for organizing and representing migrant workers’ interests.
In this increasingly precarious environment, the rise of the gig economy in Greece may provide an alternative employment option for migrant workers. However, gig work does not eliminate the ongoing social and employment disadvantages faced by migrant workers. In the current chapter, relevant statistical evidence and interview data for delivery workers were analysed to testify to this. Similar to other contexts (Wood et al., 2018), the gig economy in Greece does not provide a fertile ground for collective organizing.
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