Despite the algorithmic control they face and the individualised nature of their work, platform workers develop connections and form communities to support one another. In academic literature, this solidarity is often viewed as a mode of resistance to platforms. This article challenges that perspective by empirically examining the role of workers’ communities in the platform labour process. Drawing on an exploratory study of food delivery platforms in Chile, which included 43 interviews, five virtual shadowing sessions and 497 surveys, this research argues that solidarity plays a dual role: it fosters a critical collective consciousness that challenges the rules imposed by platforms, while also contributing to the production of consent. By helping workers assimilate the platforms’ rules or accommodate them to cope with the tensions of work, communities can reinforce the platform labour regime. The article suggests viewing labour solidarity as an inherently paradoxical and contested space.
AckroydSThompsonP (2016) Unruly subjects: Misbehaviour in the workplace. In: EdgellSGottfriedHGranterE (eds) The SAGE Handbook of the Sociology of Work and Employment. Sage.
2.
AlyanakOCantCLópez AyalaT, et al. (2023) Platform work, exploitation, and migrant worker resistance: Evidence from Berlin and London. The Economic and Labour Relations Review34(4): 667–688. DOI: 10.1017/elr.2023.34.
3.
AnwarMAGrahamM (2020) Hidden transcripts of the gig economy: Labour agency and the new art of resistance among African gig workers. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space52(7): 1269–1291. DOI: 10.1177/0308518X19894584.
4.
AroonsriPCroccoOS (2024) Workplace learning and information exchange among gig workers: Crowdsourcing and the social media advantage. Journal of Workplace Learning36(1): 77–95.
5.
Asenjo CruzACoddou McManusADhirRK (2023) The platform economy and transformations in the world of work: The case of delivery platform workers in Santiago, Chile. ILO Working Paper 100.
6.
AtzeniM (2010) Workplace Conflict: Mobilization and Solidarity in Argentina. Springer.
7.
AtzeniM (2022) Acción colectiva, movilización y solidaridad en la Fiat y Renault de Córdoba. Eduvim.
8.
BeckVBrookP (2020) Solidarities in and through work in an age of extremes. Work, Employment and Society34(1): 3–17.
9.
BessaIJoyceSNeumannD, et al. (2022) A global analysis of worker protest in digital labour platforms. ILO Working Paper 70. Available at: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/194162/.
10.
BurawoyM (1985) The Politics of Production: Factory Regimes under Capitalism and Socialism. Verso.
11.
CáceresP (2008) Análisis cualitativo de contenido: una alternativa metodológica alcanzable. Psicoperspectivas2(1): 5382. DOI: 10.5027/psiperspectivas-Vol2-Issue1-fultext-3.
12.
CameronLD (2024) The making of the ‘good bad’ job: How algorithmic management manufactures consent through constant and confined choices. Administrative Science Quarterly69(2): 458–514.
13.
CimpermanS (2023) Informal socialization in virtual work environments: Creating a digital culture of connectivity. Global Business and Organizational Excellence43(1): 53–71.
14.
CiniLGoldmannB (2021) The worker capabilities approach: Insights from worker mobilizations in Italian logistics and food delivery. Work, Employment and Society35(5): 948–967.
15.
D’ArtDTurnerT (2002) The decline of worker solidarity and the end of collectivism?Economic and Industrial Democracy23(1): 7–34.
16.
DidionEAmbrosiusUPerello-MarinMRCatalá-PérezD (2023) Virtual organizational socialization – A structured literature review and research agenda. In: 4th International Conference Business Meets Technology 2022, Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, pp. 177–191.
17.
FantasiaR (1988) Cultures of Solidarity: Consciousness, Action, and Contemporary American Workers. University of California Press.
18.
FlickU (2022) An Introduction to Qualitative Research. Sage.
19.
FordMHonanV (2019) The limits of mutual aid: Emerging forms of collectivity among app-based transport workers in Indonesia. Journal of Industrial Relations61(4): 528–548.
20.
GandiniA (2019) Labour process theory and the gig economy. Human Relations72(6): 1039–1056.
21.
Gutierrez CroccoFAtzeniM (2022) The effects of the pandemic on gig economy couriers in Argentina and Chile: Precarity, algorithmic control and mobilization. International Labour Review161(3): 441–461.
22.
Gutiérrez-CroccoFPérez-AhumadaPMárquezNG (2024) Relaciones industriales y protestas en plataformas digitales. Una comparación Chile-Argentina. Estudios Sociológicos de El Colegio de México42: 1–21.
HarveyD (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press.
25.
HauMFBorelloA (2023) Between coping and resistance: Migrant networks and alternative forms of collectivism. Economic and Industrial Democracy45(4): 1067–1089. DOI: 10.1177/0143831X231216001.
26.
HeilandH (2021) Controlling space, controlling labour? Contested space in food delivery gig work. New Technology, Work and Employment36(1): 1–16.
27.
INE (2023) Encuesta Nacional de Empleo (ENE) 2023. Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas.
28.
International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) (2015) Cuestionario: Orientaciones hacia el trabajo. ISSP 2015 Work Orientations Module.
29.
JoyceSUmneyCWhittakerXStuartM (2023) New social relations of digital technology and the future of work: Beyond technological determinism. New Technology, Work and Employment38(2): 145–161.
30.
KarhapääARikalaPPöysä-TarhonenJHämäläinenR (2024) Digital environments as sites for informal workplace learning in knowledge work. Journal of Workplace Learning36(9): 19–36.
31.
KorczynskiM (2003) Communities of coping: Collective emotional labour in service work. Organization10(1): 55–79.
MaccarroneVTassinariA (2023) Worker solidarity among gig and precarious workers. In: NessI (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of the Gig Economy. Routledge, pp. 193–204.
34.
MalikFHeeksRMasieroSNicholsonB (2021) Digital labour platforms in Pakistan: Institutional voids and solidarity networks. Information Technology and People34(7): 1819–1839.
35.
MartiniMCavenagoDMarafiotiE (2021) Exploring types, drivers and outcomes of social e-HRM. Employee Relations: The International Journal43(3): 788–806.
36.
MendonçaPKougiannouNK (2024) ‘We are not all the same’: The capacity of different groups of food delivery gig workers to build collective and individual power resources. Work, Employment and Society39(2): 311–335. DOI: 10.1177/09500170241257437.
37.
MoralesKStecherA (2023) Platform capitalism and neo-normative control: ‘Autonomy’ as a digital platform control strategy in neoliberal Chile. New Technology, Work and Employment38(2): 230–251.
38.
Morales-MuñozKRocaB (2022) The spatiality of collective action and organization among platform workers in Spain and Chile. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space54(7): 1411–1431.
39.
MorganGPulignanoV (2020) Solidarity at work: Concepts, levels and challenges. Work, Employment and Society34(1): 18–34.
40.
NoonMBlytonP (1997) Survival strategies. In: NoonMBlytonP (eds) The Realities of Work. Macmillan, pp. 140–166.
41.
NorbäckM (2019) Glimpses of resistance: Entrepreneurial subjectivity and freelance journalist work. Organization28(3): 426–448.
42.
OmanovićVLangleyA (2023) Assimilation, integration or inclusion? A dialectical perspective on the organizational socialization of migrants. Journal of Management Inquiry32(1): 76–97.
43.
ParthSBathiniDRKandathilG (2023) Actions in phygital space: Work solidarity and collective action among app-based cab drivers in India. New Technology, Work and Employment38(2): 206–229.
44.
Pérez AhumadaP (2024) Class, union membership and organizational commitment: A multilevel analysis of 28 countries. Economy and Industrial Democracy45(1): 219–245.
45.
Pérez-de-Guzmán PadrónSSerrano-PascualAIglesias-OnofrioM (2024) The active production of consent for employment precarity and the euphemisation of coercion in platform economies: The case of food delivery riders. Economic and Industrial Democracy45(4): 1040–1066.
46.
PetriglieriGAshfordSJWrzesniewskiA (2019) Agony and ecstasy in the gig economy: Cultivating holding environments for precarious and personalized work identities. Administrative Science Quarterly64(1): 124–170.
47.
RuizCBoccardoG (2014) Los chilenos bajo el neoliberalismo: Clases y conflicto social. Editorial El Desconcierto.
48.
ScottJC (1990) Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. Yale University Press.
49.
SehnbruchK (2006) The Chilean Labor Market: A Key to Understanding Latin American Labor Markets. Springer.
50.
SehnbruchKSiavelisP (2014) Democratic Chile: The Politics and Policies of a Historic Coalition, 1990–2010. Lynne Rienner.
51.
StewartAStanfordJ (2017) Regulating work in the gig economy: What are the options?The Economic and Labour Relations Review28(3): 420–437.
52.
StewartPShanahanGSmithM (2020) Individualism and collectivism at work in an era of deindustrialization: Work narratives of food delivery couriers in the platform economy. Frontiers in Sociology5: 49.
TassinariAMaccarroneV (2020) Riders on the storm: Workplace solidarity among gig economy couriers in Italy and the UK. Work, Employment and Society34(1): 35–54.
55.
VallasSP (2019) Platform capitalism: What’s at stake for workers?New Labor Forum28(1): 48–59.
56.
van DoornN (2023) Liminal precariousness and compromised agency: Experiences of migrants in gig work in Amsterdam, Berlin and New York. In: NessI (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of the Gig Economy. Routledge, pp. 158–179.
57.
van DoornNVijayD (2024) Gig work as migrant work: The platformization of migration infrastructure. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space56(4): 1129–1149. DOI: 10.1177/0308518X211065049.
58.
WoodAJGrahamMLehdonvirtaVHjorthI (2019) Good gig, bad gig: Autonomy and algorithmic control in the global gig economy. Work, Employment and Society33(1): 56–75.
59.
WoodAJLehdonvirtaVGrahamM (2018) Workers of the Internet unite? Online freelancer organisation among remote gig economy workers in six Asian and African countries. New Technology, Work and Employment33(2): 95–112.
60.
YuZTreréEBoniniT (2022) The emergence of algorithmic solidarity: Unveiling mutual aid practices and resistance among Chinese delivery workers. Media International Australia183(1): 107–123.
