Martina Monti
1. DEFINITION AND OPERATIVE MODE OF PLATFORM ECONOMY
The digital revolution has drastically changed the pace at which information is exchanged. This shift in paradigm has been the breeding ground for new ways to think about work in our age, for mainstream economics had to familiarize with terms such as platform economy, digital labour and on-demand work. It followed that arriving at a common definition of this emerging vocabulary topped policy makers’ agenda.
In the European Union (EU) context, the need for consensus on gig economy terminology has been a relatively recent phenomenon. It started in 2015 with the identification of “crowd employment”
[i] as a new form of platform-based employment, followed by the recognition that this field lacked a systematic empirical approach[ii]. Thus, the European Commission (EC) decided to set up a “group of experts for the Observatory on the Online Platform Economy”[iii] in 2018, to do extensive research on the topic.
Gig economy was – hence – classified as the set of commercial and non-commercial activities that make use of online platforms to match the supply and demand of goods.[iv] It has a unique business model that involves three parties: the platform worker, the client and last but not least, the online platform. The latter acts as an intermediary between the first two, allocating work through an efficient automated system. Essentially, the platform responds to clients’ needs by dividing – firstly – the job into smaller tasks and then by assigning them to its labourers, who will be in charge of finalising the service in exchange for remuneration. Eventually, clients themselves have the possibility to rate the service and its overall quality via “a decentralized and scalable management technique”[v].
2. FOOD DISTRIBUTION SHARE IN ONLINE PLATFORMS
There are many categories of platform-mediated services. Food delivery is the most prominent one, hitting an annual revenue of €11,8 billion[i] and counting on more 15 million of workers[ii], with both estimates projected to double as early as 2027. In Europe, Uber Eats, Just Eat, Deliveroo and Glovo are the most widely available food services with 11 million regular users.
In brief, food distribution services are third-party companies that connect consumer meal demand to restaurants’ supply while asking for a flat delivery fee. They provide the actual orders transports by relying on their own workforce. Normally, they coordinate operations through an app; namely, its algorithm allots workload and salaries, digitalizing most labour and allowing businesses to run semi-automatically.
On one side, these platforms have started a true “food delivery revolution”[iii] by efficiently integrating machine learning and labour. Yet, on the other side, this efficiency is only possible through the elimination of the standard employer-employee configuration. Whether in favourable legislation or lacking thereof, companies enjoy a substantial leverage on platform workers. That is why working conditions should be investigated more thoroughfully.
3. FOOD DELIVERY DILEMMA
To begin with, online food platforms are characterized by the “multiplication of labour”, that is the “the parallel operation of three tendencies – intensification, diversification and heterogenization of labour” [i] that jeopardize assets, transforming them into de facto liabilities.
Firstly, food delivery riders are required maximum – yet inhumane – efficiency. In other words, they must compete and match with the effectiveness of the algorithm in fulfilling tasks. In the event of non-compliance, they can be easily ousted without notice, highlighting the legal immunity platforms enjoy.[ii]
Secondly, digital food delivery companies have made flexibility the watchword of their strategy. Simply put, they preach flexible working hours while the opposite is true: life and labour are increasingly coalescing [iii] with no clear boundaries to divide the two. Not to mention how earnings are also negatively affected. In fact, because of the constant oversupply of workers[iv].
Lastly, the core logic of platform economy has gradually institutionalized precarity [v]. In short it has sold it as possibility to manage one’s time more effectively to attract workers. Yet, the absence of social protection means that – in case of low demand – there is no income security since time available to work and actual paid tasks can differ by much. Not to mention, the serious risk of exploitation.[vi
4. THE CORRELATION BETWEEN PLATFORM BUSINESS AND MIGRATION
While framing the limits and peculiarities of food delivery companies is a useful tool for targeted action, this alone cannot be sufficient. This is because digital labour repeatedly encounters a highly and already stratified labour market[i], amplifying the problems, not producing solutions.
The reality is that the majority of riders are migrants, for research shows they are generally more likely to perform platform work than natives born in the country of residence.[ii] Hence, some – albeit few – scholars, have attempted to draw a correlation between food delivery and migration to illustrate the dependency of the former on the latter.
To study systematically what variables increase the likelihood of migrant platform work, it is necessary to inquiry on the underlying motivations for engaging in this type of occupation and then consider them in the broader societal context.
When analysing newcomers’ autonomy and agency [i], the primary reason why they are attracted to gig jobs is the unbureaucratic application procedures. Namely, most food delivery companies neither ask for background check, nor they demand fluency in the host country language. This proves appealing for any foreigner looking for a quick income stream.
One other important driver is the opportunity to choose when to work. The problem is that this flexibility is simply deceptive and while it encourages migrants to turn to food delivery services, it takes out any social security. Indeed, the platform nevertheless exerts a tight – though intentionally hidden – control over them, restricting the course of action.
For this reason, each macro-factor that may influence actors’ subjectivity should be taken into consideration. This is because, within the large migration infrastructure, platforms have increasingly become the main intermediary of migrant labour: they aggregate it make it productive under a decentralized and short-term environment. Generally speaking, they fill that intricate middle space between mobility and immobility, conditioning agency possibilities. [ii] In this regard, some pundits have emphasized the vicious circularity at the basis of what they call “platform capitalism”[iii]; food delivery companies exploit migrant labourforce in order to accumulate capital and then use their deep financialization to lobby governments’ regulation. Yet, this unchecked power has serious material implication for worker and cannot be ignored for any longer. In particular, national administrations should step into the public debate and take action, instead of ignoring the problem for the sake economic growth.
To study systematically what variables increase the likelihood of migrant platform work, it is necessary to inquiry on the underlying motivations for engaging in this type of occupation and then consider them in the broader societal context.
When analysing newcomers’ autonomy and agency [i], the primary reason why they are attracted to gig jobs is the unbureaucratic application procedures. Namely, most food delivery companies neither ask for background check, nor they demand fluency in the host country language. This proves appealing for any foreigner looking for a quick income stream.
One other important driver is the opportunity to choose when to work. The problem is that this flexibility is simply deceptive and while it encourages migrants to turn to food delivery services, it takes out any social security. Indeed, the platform nevertheless exerts a tight – though intentionally hidden – control over them, restricting the course of action.
For this reason, each macro-factor that may influence actors’ subjectivity should be taken into consideration. This is because, within the large migration infrastructure, platforms have increasingly become the main intermediary of migrant labour: they aggregate it make it productive under a decentralized and short-term environment. Generally speaking, they fill that intricate middle space between mobility and immobility, conditioning agency possibilities. [ii]
In this regard, some pundits have emphasized the vicious circularity at the basis of what they call “platform capitalism”[iii]; food delivery companies exploit migrant labourforce in order to accumulate capital and then use their deep financialization to lobby governments’ regulation. Yet, this unchecked power has serious material implication for worker and cannot be ignored for any longer. In particular, national administrations should step into the public debate and take action, instead of ignoring the problem for the sake economic growth.
5. NATIONAL-LEVEL SOLUTIONS: THEIR FEASIBILITY AND APPLICABILITY
In spite of the fact that this is not yet wide state practice among EU members, some nations have stopped the virtual silence and found alternatives for dealing with the discriminatory composition of food deliver companies. The case of Belgium and Italy may offer a natural starting point for others to follow suit, while highlighting the challenges of pragmatical action.
5.1 THE CASE OF BELGIUM
In Belgium, beside the three-tier relationship among platforms, workers and clients, there is another category of intermediaries as well. Cooperatives like the Société Mutuelle pour les Artistes’ (SMartBE)[iv] mediate between food delivery companies and platform labourers. Essentially, workers become members of the cooperative so that when a salary is owed for performing a task, SMartBE takes care of the remuneration process. It sends an invoice to platform business on behalf of the workers and compensate them after deducting membership contributions. [v]
At first, this was revolutionary because by negotiating a joint agreement with Deliveroo and Take Eat Easy, it introduced worker protection and benefits, something that was before unheard of. They would guarantee “the security of an employee with the freedom of an entrepreneur”.[vi] However, there is a catch: namely platform economies decided shortly to terminate the partnership, leaving thousands in precarity and initiating a new phenomenon concerning illegal migration.
In fact, as numerous investigations show[vii], there is a growing number of platform workers that are illegally in the country and use someone else’s Deliveroo or Uber eats account to make ends meet. This is done by giving 20% of the earnings to the profile real owner, remaining – in the best-case scenario – with the bare minimum to survive.
The newspaper Le Soir reports that almost the totality of people they interviewed, were “young men between the ages of 18 and 30” coming “generally from North and West Africa, but also from America. from the South, Pakistan, Syria and Afghanistan”[viii] who depended on gig economy to work – though unlawfully. Despite evidence, companies continue to dismiss them as false claims.[ix
5.2 THE CASE OF ITALY
Another textbook example to understand the risks associated with unregulated control of platform economy and their alternative is Italy.
In Milan, senior manager and HR staff at Uber Eats were found guilty[x] for the “exploitation of vulnerable migrant workers by the company’s food delivery arm” which subjected them to “degrading working conditions” earning as little as €3 per hour.[xi] Investigators applied “not a moral approach but a legal one”, a landmark for the more than 60% of migrants working in this sector. [xii]
Similarly in Bologna, a court ruled that food delivery managers consciously choose to subordinate riders, using the app algorithm in a discriminatory way. The allocation of orders was not indeed impartial but based on a ranking reputational system that singled out any social rights in an already unpredictable work environment. [xiii]
[i] Van Doorn, N., & Vijay, D. (2021). Gig work as migrant work: The platformization of migration infrastructure. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 0(0) available at . https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X211065049 [retrieved September 23rd, 2022]
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Manuela Bojadžijev M, Mezzadra S. (2020) Debating Platform Capitalism Introduction, PLUS available at https://project-plus.eu/publications/debating-platform-capitalism-introduction/ [retrieved September 21st, 2022]
[iv] SMartBe, available at https://smartbe.be/fr/smart-en-bref/ [retrieved September 23rd, 2022]
[v] Drahokoupil J, Piasna A. (2022), Work in the platform economy: Deliveroo riders in Belgium and the SMart arrangement, ETUI, The European Trade Union Institute, Brussles a
[vi] SMartBe, available at https://smartbe.be/fr/smart-en-bref/ [retrieved September 23rd, 2022]
[vii]Pauline Neerman (2022), More than half of Brussels meal couriers are illegal, Retail Detail available at https://www.retaildetail.eu/news/food/more-than-half-of-brussels-meal-couriers-are-illegal/ [retrieved on September 21st 2022]
[viii] Belga, (2021), Asylum and migration: the majority of meal deliverers by bike in Brussels are undocumented, RTBF, available at https://www.rtbf.be/article/asile-et-migration-la-majorite-des-livreurs-de-repas-a-velo-a-bruxelles-sont-sans-papiers-10857840?id=10857840 [retrieved on September 21st 2022]
[ix] Alan Hope (2021), Most food delivery workers are here illegally, The Brussels Times, available at https://www.brusselstimes.com/188737/most-food-delivery-workers-are-here-illegally, [retrieved on September 21st 2022]
[x] Giacomo Galeazzi (2021), Milano, prima condanna per caporalato sui rider: ex intermediario di Uber Eats dovrà pagare 440 mila euro, La Stampa, available athttps://www.lastampa.it/cronaca/2021/10/15/news/caporalato-a-milano-uber-eats-condannata-a-pagare-440-mila-euro-ai-rider-1.40813337/ [retrieved on September 21st 2022]
[xi] Leonardo Tondo (2020), Uber Eats in Italy investigated over alleged migrant worker exploitation, The Guardian, available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/13/uber-eats-in-italy-under-investigation-for-alleged-exploitation-of-migrant-workers [retrieved on September 21st 2022]
[xii] Fasano M. L, Natale P. (2019), I riders: una ricerca di carattere ricognitivo, Slide Share, avialble at https://www.slideshare.net/CristinaTajani/i-riders-a-milano-una-ricerca-di-carattere-ricognitivo?qid=87dc0709-6bab-45a5-ad7b-329dd0321237&v=&b=&from_search=1 [retrieved on September 22nd 2022]
[xiii] Redazione Ansa, Tribunale condanna algoritmo Deliveroo, ‘discrimina rider’, Ansa, available athttps://www.ansa.it/emiliaromagna/notizie/2021/01/02/rider-cgilalgoritmo-discrimina-sentenza-tribunale-bologna_cc14c299-2c6b-411b-b677-496549ee3af1.html [retrieved on September 23rd 2022]