{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32","title":"Migrant Labour in the Gig Economy The Intersection of Migrant Labour, Platform Capitalism, and Resistance","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9783031912610","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32","id":"ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32","uuid":"ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32","title":"Migrant Labour in the Gig Economy The Intersection of Migrant Labour, Platform Capitalism, and Resistance","normalized_title":"migrantlabourinthegigeconomytheintersectionofmigrantlabourplatformcapitalismandresistance","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9783031912610","isbns":["9783031912610","9783031912627"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":270,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Migrant%20Labour%20in%20the%20Gig%20Economy%20The%20Intersection%20of%20Migrant%20Labour%2C%20Platform%20Capitalism%2C%20and%20Resistance","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32/search"},"page":{"printed_page":4,"pdf_page":20,"physical_index":20,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"4d39e05ba50bdfe19e640b6f3ce8f75bf992071552089be137b5b86169a904c1"},"chapter":"Dynamics ofVirtual Work","content":"App-based food delivery can be seen as the outcome of an extreme form of subcontracting, wherein the logistics and transportation services necessary to preserve surplus value are not carried out by in-house employees—such as the now-vanishing ‘pizza express’ workers or dedicated delivery staff employed by pizzerias and restaurants before the advent of food delivery platforms—nor by workers of subcontracted firms that externalize the circulation phase of the production process. Instead, these services are performed by individual workers who, while formally classified as self-employed, are in reality controlled and directed by algorithms (Kojima, 2015). This represents a return to—or more precisely, the creation of—a hybrid form of piecework and home-based labor (Toffanin, 2016). This system allows companies to adjust production in real-time to meet demand, a defining characteristic of subcontracting. More significantly, it shifts the costs of capital procurement and maintenance onto workers while simultaneously reinforcing the ideological narrative of supposed ‘self-entrepreneurship.’ This narrative is embedded in a neoliberal lexicon filled with euphemistic and sanitized expressions, such as ‘platform economy,’ ‘sharing economy,’ ‘co-working’, all of which serve to reframe subordination as ‘synergy’ and transform wage laborers into ‘collaborators,’ ‘partners,’ or ‘entrepreneurs.’ Through the coercion to perceive their material conditions as a state of ‘autonomy,’ masked by the ideological illusion that their labor is flexible, independent, and easily combinable with other productive and reproductive activities, workers experience the highest degree of external control and subjugation over their existence (Kojima, 2015).\n\nThis ideological construction appears to have influenced the members of the Italia Rider Association as well. According to Il Gazzettino, the association does not identify exclusionary migration policies—such as those tying residence permits to employment contracts, making legal entry and residence in Italy and Europe difficult, thereby increasing migrants’ vulnerability—as the cause of riders’ dismal wages and working conditions. Nor does it attribute responsibility to the gig economy platforms that reintroduce archaic forms of labor exploitation reminiscent of early industrial capitalism. Instead, the blame is placed on doubly marginalized workers: migrants who are both exploited by the platforms and further subjected to ‘digital caporalato’ by intermediaries who profit from their labor. Once again, the platforms themselves, which have a vested interest in maximizing the number of competing riders scrambling for any available delivery, are absolved. Instead, the responsibility is attributed to ‘Bangladeshi and Pakistani gangmasters’ who rent out smartphones to their compatriots and to the ‘Bangladeshi and Pakistani workers’ themselves, who are accused of lacking road safety awareness or food handling knowledge.\n\n4\n\nF. DELLA PUPPA ET AL.","previous_page":3,"next_page":5}