Migrant Labour in the Gig Economy The Intersection of Migrant Labour, Platform Capitalism, and Resistance

palgrave macmillan

Migrant Labour in the Gig Economy The Intersection of Migrant Laistan, Phe tnter Capitalism, and Resistanice

Edited by Edited byco Della Puppa · Dipsita Diial Nicola Montagna

Dynamics of Virtual Work

DYNAMICS OF VIRTUAL WORK

Dynamics ofVirtual Work

Ursula Huws, Analytica Social and Economic Research, London, UK Rosalind Gill, Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths University of London, London, UK

Series Editors

Technological change has transformed where people work, when and how. Digitisation of information has altered labour processes out of all recognition whilst telecommunications have enabled jobs to be relocated globally. ICTs have also enabled the creation of entirely new types of ‘digital’ or ‘virtual’ labour, both paid and unpaid, shifting the borderline between ‘play’ and ‘work’ and creating new types of unpaid labour connected with the consumption and co-creation of goods and services. This affects private life as well as transforming the nature of work and people experience the impacts differently depending on their gender, their age, where they live and what work they do. Aspects of these changes have been studied separately by many different academic experts however up till now a cohesive overarching analytical framework has been lacking. Drawing on a major, high-profile COST Action (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Dynamics of Virtual Work, this series will bring together leading international experts from a wide range of disciplines including political economy, labour sociology, economic geography, communications studies, technology, gender studies, social psychology, organisation studies, industrial relations and development studies to explore the transformation of work and labour in the Internet Age. The series will allow researchers to speak across disciplinary boundaries, national borders, theoretical and political vocabularies, and different languages to understand and make sense of contemporary transformations in work and social life more broadly. The book series will build on and extend this, offering a new, important and intellectually exciting intervention into debates about work and labour, social theory, digital culture, gender, class, globalisation and economic, social and political change.

Francesco Della Puppa · Dipsita Dhar · Nicola Montagna Editors

Migrant Labour in the Gig Economy

The Intersection of Migrant Labour, Platform Capitalism, and Resistance

palgrave macmillan

Editors
Francesco Della Puppa
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
Venice, Italy

Dipsita Dhar Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi, Delhi, India

Nicola Montagna University of Salerno Salerno, Italy

ISSN 2947-9290

Dynamics of Virtual Work

ISSN 2947-9304 (electronic)

ISBN 978-3-031-91261-0 ISBN 978-3-031-91262-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-91262-7

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: © Katrin Sauerwein/EyeEm Getty Images

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG

The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

If disposing of this product, please recycle the paper.

To the digitalized service workers ofthe world and to their unity in the struggles, to which the current crisis ofcapitalism calls them and calls us all.

Praise for Migrant Labour in the Gig ECONOMY

“The growth of the gig economy in recent years is a phenomenon of great importance which has remained insufficiently studied. This economy’s specificities such as its notable reliance on migrant workers even when there is local unemployment and the divide this introduces between gig and other workers and the additional hurdles it creates in the way of their becoming organized, remain as intriguing as ever. The papers in this book are extremely useful in this context. Based on meticulous field-work they throw much-needed light on the gig economy in several countries and constitute a timely and invaluable contribution to an understanding of a key aspect of contemporary capitalism.”

—Prabhat Patnaik, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

“This is an excellent collection that brings together important perspectives on migrant workers in the platform economy. The contributions take seriously the challenges that migrant workers face in this kind of work, while maintaining a focus on the workers’ struggles that have the power to change these conditions.”

—Jamie Woodcock, King’s College, London, UK and high levels of exploitation. Across its eight chapters, the book examines empirical realities in Italy, Portugal, Greece, England, India, and China, suggesting that while each country exhibits specific singularities and particularities, a broader, paradoxical process of homogenization is underway. This process manifests in the precarization and intensification of labour exploitation, particularly affecting migrant workers. A new specter is haunting the world of work: the specter of Uberization.

“The central axis of this book can be summarized as follows: on one hand, we witness a monumental expansion of digital labour and algorithmic systems. On the other, we observe the growing presence of migrant labour within these digital activities, characterized by the absence of rights

vii

This book provides crucial insights that enhance our understanding of these emerging labour modalities, and it also suggests that we are witnessing the rise of new struggles and forms of resistance. This dynamic reveals that the evolving morphology of labour is giving rise to a new morphology of social struggles.”

—Ricardo Antunes, State University ofCampinas, Brazil

“This book is a collective attempt to reveal the latest dynamics of global capitalism with platform and gig economy. It is shown that the new digital technology has not been used to ensure comfort or leisure for the global working class; but, on the contrary, used to extract super profit by making them more alienated, more vulnerable, more unprotected, more precarious, 24x7 job with no holidays, no trade union, no regular income.

In the present neoliberal global (dis)order, war, conflict, unemployment and insecurity often drive more people to leave their home or country and add them to increasing number of migrant labour, now visible portion of global workforce. In fact, capitalism in global scale has not been able to create decent, safe and regular jobs, rather created sea of unemployed work force, easy prey for precarious work.

This book by compiling articles focuses on global south and also specific studies on India, Portugal, Greece, UK, Italy, China has brought new facts and insights crucial to understand development of ‘platform capitalism’ and the gig economy as well as the failure of traditional trade unions and looking for other ways for organizing workers.”

—Anu Muhammad, Professor ofEconomics (and anthropology) at Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh

viii

PRAISE FOR MIGRANTLABOUR IN THE GIG ECONOMY

Contents

1 Introduction: Migrant Labour in the Platform
Economy—The Intersection of Labour Digitization,
Platform Capitalism, Migration, and Resistance 1
Francesco Della Puppa, Dipsita Dhar, and Nicola Montagna
Part I Vulnerability and Inherent Precarity of Migrant
Workers in Gig Economy
2 Migrant Labour in the Greek Gig Economy 21
Lefteris Kretsos and Vassilis Charitsis
3 Digital Caporalato and Migrant Labour in the Gig
Economy 59
Gianmarco Peterlongo
4 Delivering in the Lagoon. Critical Reflections
on the Flexibility of Platformised Food Delivery in Venice 79
Giorgio Pirina
5 Migrant Gig Workers of India’s Consumerist Cities:
The Contradictions of Platform Economy and Delivery
Work in Neoliberal India 99
Suddhabrata Deb Roy
6 Vulnerability and Resistance Among Digital
and Platform Immigrant Workers in Portugal 145
Isabel Roque
Part II Strategies of Resistance
7 Organising Migrant Platform Workers in London: The
Case of IWGB 175
Paolo Borghi and Annalisa Murgia
8 Migration, Precarity and Solidarity Among Migrant
Platform Workers in China’s Food Delivery
and Ride-Hailing Sectors 197
Yang Zhou
9 Transversal Unionism: Resisting and Navigating
a Neoliberal City Through Identity and Labour Power 231
Dipsita Dhar, Ashique Ali Thuppilikkat,
and Soham Bhattacharya

ix