Abstract
While protests in platform labour and especially food delivery have been thoroughly studied, neither the social composition of riders nor their underlying recruitment strategies of platforms have been analysed. The article examines the relationship between recruitment, social composition and collective action for the first time. It is based on two case studies of German food delivery platforms, analysed with a mixed-method research design consisting of interviews, multi-sited ethnography and a survey. Adapting the concept of attraction-selection-attrition cycles, the findings indicate that ensuring sufficient labour is crucial for the platforms, and they therefore use different recruiting strategies. In doing so, they specifically utilise the symbolic surplus of messenger subculture while avoiding its political aspirations. As a result, a distinct group of riders emerges who possess both the interest and the capabilities to initiate collective action. They function as catalysts of collective action; however, they simultaneously impede its institutionalisation.
Introduction
By the end of 2011, the cigarette brand Marlboro had abandoned the cowboy as its iconic advertising figure. In Germany, the resulting gap was filled by an advertising campaign that urged people to ‘Don’t Be a Maybe’ and instead ‘Be’. Various modern smokers were used to illustrate this slogan, including a bicycle messenger who, as a metropolitan cowboy, transferred the attributes of his predecessor – independence, coolness and masculinity – into the modern age. The advertising campaign was successful but was banned by the courts for a short time because it was said to be particularly likely to encourage young people to smoke. This exemplifies the image of bike messengers as alternative, stylish and adventurous individuals who escape societal constraints and live autonomously on and with bicycles. The following article argues that, at least in the German context, this image serves as a symbolic surplus that valorises precarious work and acts both as an effective recruitment tool and as a catalyst for collective action in the field of food delivery gig work.
Platform labour is characterised by a contradiction between control and resistance. On the one hand, platform workers are fragmented at various levels (Heiland, 2020, 2022a): (a) legally, they are individualised as they are usually self-employed; (b) spatially, they operate in delocalised working spaces; (c) organisationally, their tasks are standardised, modularised and codified and they are put in competition with each other; (d) technologically, algorithmic management monitors their actions and minimises human-to-human communication; and (e) socially, they are a heterogeneous group with a pronounced fluctuation, most of them working part-time, leading to diverse political demands and limited engagement. The power resources of platform workers are therefore limited, and the prospect of workers’ voice appears unlikely. On the other hand, a plethora of protests by platform workers exist (Bessa et al., 2022; Heiland, 2020; Woodcock, 2021), and the field has been identified as ‘one of the most vibrant and exciting areas of labour organising’ (Joyce et al., 2020: p. 1). However, the distribution of protests is uneven, with a predominance in Western Europe (and a growing presence in Asia and Latin America) and particular focus in the domain of food delivery work (Bessa et al., 2022; Trappmann et al., 2020).
Reason for the prevalence of protests in food delivery can be attributed to the less pronounced fragmentation: Riders gather and interact in designated urban spaces, donning distinctive uniforms that serve as a visual identifier. The processes and structures underpinning protests in food delivery gig work have been the subject of extensive academic scrutiny. As Tassinari and Maccarrone (2019) demonstrated in their seminal work, the mobilisation potential is linked to the labour process. Subsequently, political networks and prior experiences of riders (Cini and Goldmann, 2020), communities and cultures of solidarity (Heiland and Schaupp, 2021; Yu et al., 2022), the resistant use of urban spaces (Briziarelli, 2019; Heiland, 2021), technological counter-use (Cini and Goldmann, 2020; Heiland, 2021), use of social media (Brinkmann et al., 2022; Hau and Savage, 2022), organisational creativity (Vandaele, 2021) and associational power and rank-and-file unions (Heiland, 2020; Joyce et al., 2022; Trappmann et al., 2020; Vandaele, 2018) were identified as key aspects for realising collective action.
Collective action refers to the coordinated efforts of individuals or groups to pursue shared interests or achieve common goals, particularly in response to perceived injustices, inequalities, or collective needs. From a labour sociology perspective, collective action emerges within the structural and relational context of work, shaped by power relations, organisational forms and the social composition of workers (Edwards, 1986; Kelly, 1998). At its core, collective action depends on the alignment of interests, identities and capacities among actors who mobilise around common issues (Cini and Goldmann, 2020).
While the mechanisms through which collective action on the part of the riders materialises, the protests and the actors behind them are generally perceived as a uniform phenomenon. Frequently, conclusions are drawn from one part of platform workers to their entirety. Through this homogenisation, the pronounced heterogeneity of the riders and their often still existing social fragmentation is overlooked. Yet, the heterogeneity of the workforce is increasing in general (Eurofound, 2016), which is not new in the context of atypical work (Hyman, 1995) and is especially evident among platform workers, for whom a great diversity of their demands has been identified (Heiland, 2020: p. 25). Accordingly, Schor (2020) underscores that the platform model leads to a heterogeneous composition of platform workers. The motivations to pursue platform work are varied, including flexibility, absence of discrimination and low entry barriers to supplementary income. Subsequently, working conditions are not uniformly perceived by platform workers but vary according to material dependency (Schor et al., 2020). A discussion of this heterogeneity and its subjective experience is rare. Despite the identification of this gap (Tassinari and Maccarrone, 2019: p. 50), no consequences for collective action of platform workers have been derived to date, with the exception of different economic behaviours (Cansoy et al., 2021). Consequently, the extent to which the workers’ dependency on platform labour and more generally how their individual characteristics – their social composition – influence their interests and capabilities to protest remains unclear.
Social composition refers to the specific configuration of social characteristics, backgrounds and motivations that constitute a group of workers within a particular labour context. In addition to sociodemographic aspects, it is historically and materially shaped by the specific production process and the position workers occupy within it. It reflects how labour is organised, how value is produced and extracted and how workers’ experiences, identities and capacities for collective action are formed in relation to these conditions.
The riders’ social composition and their great heterogeneity are primarily due to their recruitment, that is, how and for what reasons they start or end platform labour. Aspects of human resource management in the gig economy have already been addressed by research (Meijerink and Keegan, 2019). If the recruitment process is analysed, however, its effects are left out (Meijerink et al., 2021; Williams et al., 2021).
The article's argument is that the recruitment of riders is not random but directly or indirectly influences the social composition of workers and, consequently, the likelihood and form of protests. In doing so, it seeks to explain why protests are particularly prevalent in the context of food delivery gig work. Beyond the lower fragmentation and thus the more favourable structural conditions for workers’ voice, the article explains this with the riders’ specific social composition. Platforms are confronted with the challenge of having to recruit a sufficient number of workers for a precarious job. The article demonstrates that the platforms employ two distinct strategies in this regard. Firstly, the symbolic surplus of the bicycle courier subculture is utilised, and secondly, the promise of flexible and low-threshold income opportunities is realised. As a result, two distinct groups of riders emerge that both act as catalysts to protests while hampering their institutionalisation as well.
The article is based on a mixed-method research design to explore the relationship between recruitment, social composition and collective action. It makes three contributions: First, it demonstrates the platforms’ dependence on labour. As platforms construct multi-sided markets, ensuring sufficient workers is existential for them, and they actively develop recruitment strategies. Second, the article emphasises and conceptualises this recruitment. Based on a critical discussion and adaptation of the attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) approach, the role of recruitment strategies for the social composition of workers and subsequently for the likelihood of contention and collective action is outlined. And thirdly, it identifies the symbolic surplus as an element that is crucial for the attraction and immaterial compensation of precarious work, but which can lead to discontent in case of non-fulfilment.
The remainder of the article is organised as follows. Next, the ASA approach is discussed (2). This is followed by a discussion of food delivery gig work and the platforms’ recruitment challenge (3) and then a discussion of the messenger subculture and its symbolic surplus (4). Following the introduction of the research design (5), the data of the study are presented (6), and the findings are discussed in the follow-up (7) before being summarised (8).
Recruitment and organisations: Attraction-selection-attrition
The process by which individuals become members of organisations is not random but rather is driven by specific factors and dynamics. Workers select their employer according to their preferences and are, in turn, selected by the organisations for their fit. As a result, organisations frequently exhibit a certain degree of social homogeneity as people with similar attributes gather within them.
An established approach for analysing recruitment of workers is the attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) framework. Schneider (1987) (p. 450) emphasises: ‘organisations are the people in them: that the people make the place’. The focus is twofold: firstly, to ascertain the factors that motivate individuals to join an organisation, and secondly, to understand the ramifications of this decision for the organisation itself. The ASA cycle is a theoretical model that posits that individuals and organisations assess their compatibility at three points: the initial approach (attraction), during recruitment (selection) and continuously when the people have become members of the organisation (attrition).
The attraction is based on a positive perception of the organisation and its congruence with the individual's interests and preferences. In this phase, candidates may gather information about the potential employer and modify their attitude towards it (Swider et al., 2015). As Turban and Cable (2003) demonstrate, the appeal of organisations can increase the volume and quality of applicants. With regard to attraction, a distinction is made between instrumental and symbolic attributes (Acikgoz, 2019: p. 5). The former include aspects such as working conditions and remuneration, whereas symbolic attributes refer to organisational image and job prestige. For instance, aesthetics is crucial in recruitment, in addition to individual fit (Dineen et al., 2007). The efficacy of these aspects is contingent upon the interplay between the intrinsic and extrinsic work values of the individuals involved (Gallie, 2007).
In the subsequent selection phase, both the individuals and the organisations examine the respective compatibility and make a decision regarding organisational membership. Once individuals are part of the organisation, they acquire new information and continuously modify their impression, so that termination and thus attrition can occur (Ryan et al., 2000; Schneider et al., 1995): ‘people who do not fit an environment well will tend to leave it’ (Schneider, 1987: p. 442).
Through recruitment, companies can determine the types of their employees and thus also the organisation's composition and, consequently, its overall direction. However, little research has been done on how this process actually works. Above all, the alignment between values of organisations and individuals, person-organisation-fit (PO-fit; Kristof, 1996), has been extensively studied (Acikgoz, 2019: p. 3). PO-fit is associated with higher job satisfaction, fewer resignations and higher employee commitment and performance (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005). Evidently, PO-fit also appears to be closely linked to the attraction people feel towards organisations (Uggerslev et al., 2012). Furthermore, a robust PO-fit also seems to be associated with lower organisational misbehaviour (Hershcovis et al., 2007). 1 PO-fit is complemented by person-job fit, which emphasises the congruence between job requirements and individual skills (Carless, 2005).
According to the origin of the approach in organisational psychology, Schneider and colleagues (Schneider et al., 1987: pp. 437–440; 1995: p. 750) reject a ‘situationist perspective’ and emphasise that people's personalities are ‘the root cause of structure, process, and culture’. The latter are only attributed a role in the socialisation of individuals (Schneider et al., 1995: p. 766). Situational aspects are thus linked to the personal attributes of the individuals in an organisation (Schneider et al., 1995: p. 751). Accordingly, the founders of companies, for example, are regarded as exerting a particularly formative influence on the constitution of their organisations and, via the ASA process, also on their membership composition (Schneider et al., 1995: pp. 748–749). The economic environment, technologies, path dependencies and traditions or even sector characteristics are thus neglected in favour of personal attributes.
The relevance of recruiting
The distinguishing characteristic of platforms is their multi-sidedness (Rochet and Tirole, 2003). They act as intermediaries, facilitating connections between various actors – in the case of food delivery, restaurants, couriers and customers (Haidar, 2024). Interdependencies between the different groups that can lead to network effects: The more restaurants are on a platform, the more customers order meals, which in turn attracts more couriers, and vice versa. The result can be rapid and self-reinforcing growth. However, these effects can also have negative impacts: if there are not enough couriers available, customers leave the platform and thus also restaurants, and vice versa. The potential for high growth and monopolies associated with multi-sided markets is therefore fragile and volatile. The challenge for platforms is to balance the different sides of the market. Platforms tend to prioritise the customer side (Duch-Brown, 2017), mainly through price incentives or other forms such as the deactivation of Uber drivers after complaints, but not passengers (Gebrial, 2022: p. 17). However, labour platforms are also compelled to organise and ensure labour as ‘the most complex side of the market’ (Heiland, 2020: p. 9), so recruitment becomes particularly important.
Finding suitable staff has always been a challenge for work organisations (Cappelli, 2015). Companies are advised to conceptualise themselves as ‘employer brands’ and apply the insights of brand management to human relations practices and with a particular focus on the recruitment of new employees (Barrow and Mosley, 2015). This communication and the promotion of vacancies are increasingly taking place online (Alamro et al., 2018; Dineen et al., 2007). In addition, a focus on PO-fit of new employees is advised to ensure their identification and motivation and therefore their performance and long-term employment (Gill, 2021). The necessary skills, the job fit, are considered secondary (‘hire for attitude, train for skill’). Conversely, applicants frequently have inaccurate expectations and perceptions of the organisation they apply to (Breaugh, 2008: pp. 105–106), which is also a result of the companies’ window dressing.
Food delivery platforms in particular are characterised by continuous growth and a high turnover of riders (Heiland, 2022b). This results in a persistent demand for new personnel. The platforms require workers for low-paid, precarious work at unfavourable times at specific places. In order to prevent a shortage of workers and thus a mismatch of the different market sides, recruiting is of particular relevance. As outlined above, recruiting in platform labour has been considered rarely. Early on, Aguinis and Lawal (2013) pointed out the importance of HR management for digital labour platforms. Accordingly, Meijerink and Keegan (2019) emphasise the relevance of workforce planning and recruiting for gig work platforms. Empirically, this is rarely studied (Carr et al., 2017; Meijerink et al., 2021; Williams et al., 2021), and its effects on the workers’ social structure remain largely unaddressed. It can therefore be concluded that ensuring a sufficient labour force on platforms (especially food delivery) is of great importance. The following discussion will examine how food delivery platforms shape recruitment and the consequences of this phenomenon.
Messenger subculture and its symbolic surplus
Once a ‘poor man's vehicle’, the bicycle is currently experiencing a renaissance in Western societies and with a ‘cycle chic’ has become part of a ‘trendy metropolitan lifestyle of young urban professionals’ (Oosterhuis, 2016: p. 247). The bicycle is considered ‘The Way Ahead for Towns and Cities’ (European Commission, 1999) and provides an alternative to car-centred mobility in the form of ‘velotopian urban imaginaries’ (Nikolaeva and Nello-Deakin, 2020). The covid pandemic, climate change, e-bikes and bikesharing have served to further catalyse this development.
A long-standing and distinct manifestation of such bicycle cultures is messenger services that perform cycling as work. As early as 1850, bicycle boys carried telegrams from telegraph stations to recipients (Downey, 2002). The modern form of courier work developed in the mid-1980s, predominantly in major US cities, and was swiftly followed by European metropolises. As the fastest form of transport in urban centres, messenger services are a key component of post-industrial cities where analogue and time-sensitive objects need to be moved from one place to another (Kidder, 2016).
In contrast to many other forms of work, messenger work involves great physical effort. In addition, couriers are particularly vulnerable in urban traffic and regularly attain their speed advantages by disregarding traffic regulations; thus, their work is accompanied by serious dangers and ‘death-defying excitement’ (Kidder, 2009: p. 320). Accordingly, the average age of messengers is low, and there is a significant turnover. In contrast to this high risk, there is only a modest material gain in the form of low pay, but a pronounced sense of self-determination.
Courier work is characterised by a strong unity of occupation, identity and culture (Fincham, 2008), with messengers perceiving their work as both an attitude and a way of life. The precarious and arduous conditions with low wages are counterbalanced by a ‘symbolic compensation’ (Fincham, 2008: p. 622). This symbolic status is the result of a specific messenger style and subculture (Fincham, 2007; Kidder, 2005; Spinney and Popan, 2021). These are shaped by symbols, practices and attitudes. The former include characteristic clothing (Bialobos, 2000), bicycles (e.g., fixed-wheel bikes), work items and language. Practices are the equally risky and special skills of operating in urban traffic (Kidder, 2009) but also illicit races through the city, which also include international championships (Fincham, 2008; Fisher, 1997; Kidder, 2006). Attitudes are characterised by anti-establishment and left-wing sentiments as well as a ‘distrust of authority and a disdain for the pallid indoor worker’ (Fisher, 1997) or as one courier puts it: It is ‘the opposite of every job you ever dreaded having’ (Lasola and Weinstein, 1992).
With these characteristics, messengers can be considered as urban anti-heroes, thus explaining the image of modern metropolitan cowboys mentioned above. Originally, messengers represented a subculture. But together with an increasing mediatisation of cycling and its culture (Tirino, 2022), an image of a distinct messenger culture has emerged, permeating the mainstream culture through various media, including Hollywood films, fashion, pop culture and newspaper articles, as well as the presence of messengers in urban life. The result is a symbolic surplus that affects the messengers themselves in the form of immaterial compensation, as well as serving as a point of reference for people outside this subcultural niche. Symbolic surplus thus describes a valorisation of work via cultural practices. By referring to a value beyond the mere production of goods and services, it is able to produce an intrinsic quality of labour for the workers. As evidenced by the case of bicycle couriers, this phenomenon is particularly pronounced when specific subcultures emerge around a work, which are also perceived (positively) by the general public.
However, the symbolic surplus is only relevant for a specific subset of the messengers. While it is a significant aspect in terms of recruiting new messengers who want to be part of this subculture, another proportion of messengers pursue this work due to the minimal requirements for entry, which gives them access to wage labour regardless of their status (e.g., with a criminal record and lack of education). Kidder assumes that the majority of messengers belong to the latter group and that only a minority belongs to the group he calls ‘lifestyle messengers’, among whom are mainly white men and a few female messengers (Kidder, 2005: pp. 349–350). 2 For these lifestyle messengers, their job extends beyond the confines of their working hours. They identify extensively with their characteristic style and culture. This small group of messengers shapes the image of their profession. Little is known about the numerically much larger yet more disenfranchised messengers, who primarily engage in this work for extrinsic motivation and participate only to a limited extent in the symbolic surplus or for whom this type is indicative of a failed career (Spinney and Popan, 2021: pp. 140–141), as well as about the interactions of the two groups.
At least for Western societies, the delivery of food mediated via platforms is a new form of messenger work. In the nascent research into the phenomenon, it has been identified as its commercialised and less individualised counterpart, equally characterised by precarious working conditions but without the symbolic surplus of the messenger subculture: ‘the loss of individual identity wrought by the digitalisation of messengering and logistics is more likely to lead to a loss of street capital’ (Spinney and Popan, 2021: p. 141). Whether this is actually the case or whether the symbolic surplus of messenger work is also capable of symbolically upgrading platform-mediated food delivery and what influence this has on platform workers will be examined in the following.
Methods
The subject of the study is the two leading food delivery platforms in Germany in 2018 – Deliveroo and Foodora. During the research period – February to October 2018 – the two platforms differed in their employment model. While Foodora employed riders on a temporary basis, Deliveroo riders were self-employed. Both platforms were the subject of a case study (Yin, 2018) employing a mixed-method research design (Teddlie and Tashakkori, 2006). A comprehensive approach encompassed interviews, ethnography, content analysis of chat groups and a quantitative online survey.
A total of 35 semi-structured interviews were conducted in seven different cities. On average, they lasted 80 min. Five of the interviewees were female; eight had no German nationality; on average, they were 27 years old; and most had at least a university entrance qualification. Thus, the interviewees reflected the riders’ social structure as revealed in the survey. Of the interviewees, 17 were currently or previously part of management or had management responsibilities as rider captains or senior riders and thus had insight into internal processes. A theoretical sampling was employed in order to develop object-related theoretical concepts (Glaser and Strauss, 1967).
Furthermore, over 500 h of ethnography were conducted in five different cities. This included both accompanying couriers during their work, meetings and protests as participating observation as well as carrying out courier work independently as observing participation (Parkin, 2017). The findings were recorded in field diaries. This provided nuanced, less reactive insight from the riders’ everyday practices. In addition, six chat groups of riders were analysed (Nam, 2019), half of which were supra-regional and the remainder were local. Only one of these was public, and the author was invited to the others, in which cases his roles as both rider and researcher were made transparent. Data collection was concluded upon the attainment of theoretical saturation and thus ‘conceptual representativeness’ (Saunders et al., 2018). All qualitative data were transcribed, anonymised, coded and analysed using software (Kuckartz, 2016).
In addition, an online survey was conducted. Given the absence of reliable data on the precise number of riders, a random sample was not feasible (see Griesbach et al., 2019: p. 4; Maffie, 2020: p. 13). The objective of the survey was to provide descriptive and exploratory insights. Therefore, a purposive sampling strategy was employed, with riders being systematically recruited for the study. Based on the qualitative data, this was promising (Barratt et al., 2015) and avoided self-selection biases. A total of 252 people participated in the survey. The riders were asked about their backgrounds, motivations and experiences. Given the purposive sample and its limited size, no multivariate analyses were conducted; only univariate analyses and descriptions of the data set were pursued. The various methods were used in a concurrent research design with a slight interdependence (Schoonenboom and Johnson, 2017). Thus, data was collected using all methods simultaneously, and some initial findings were incorporated into the further investigation, for example, through specific interview questions or focal points in participant observation.
Analysis: Two groups of riders
In the following, the platforms’ recruitment strategies are presented (6.1), then the riders’ resulting different motivations (6.2), their social composition is discussed (6.3), and finally their role in the protests is elaborated (6.4).
Attraction and recruitment from platforms
From the outset, Foodora and Deliveroo engaged in intensive advertising battles to attract customers in urban centres. This was accompanied by extensive media coverage of the platforms, with some of it being critical. The platforms were confronted with a very high turnover of workers. A shop steward described that at the peak, riders had an ‘average length of stay of two months’. A rider with management tasks said: ‘We always need people. Especially in winter. I have never seen Foodora turn anyone down’. This was particularly pronounced in smaller cities with a constrained labour market, and in winter, there was sometimes a noticeable shortage of workers (Heiland, 2022b). Coupled with the steady growth, demand for labour remained consistently high. For recruiting, the platforms placed targeted online ads or approached students on university campuses and even refugees in their camps. However, self-recruitment of riders was more important, as one manager said: Our advantage is that we are enormously visible in the city centres. With every order, someone in our colours always rides through the city. We are the talk of the town and attract the attention of potential customers and riders. We also try to recruit new riders specifically, but most of them come to us on their own.
With regard to the actual recruitment process, two strategies of the platforms can be identified: on the one hand, the promise of a low-threshold to flexible work, and on the other, referring to the symbolic surplus, the promise of free, active and cool work. These strategies were less aimed at directly recruiting workers than at constructing a general attraction that would encourage self-recruitment, and they did not act mutually exclusive. Firstly, minimal requirements were stipulated for new riders (e.g., a work permit), and they were recruited with the promise of ‘start tomorrow [with] a super flexible job’ (Foodora). The fit of persons and jobs was objectively given for all those who spoke German or English and had a mobile phone and bicycle. At onboarding meetings, the labour process and the app were explained, and questions could be asked. In one of the onboardings experienced, the platform representative just handed out the link for the app and said: ‘Look at it. It's all self-explanatory. I’ll be in the next room if you have any questions. Have fun riding’.
Secondly, the platforms deliberately alluded to the symbolic surplus of the messenger subculture and constructed a corresponding image. This manifested in the images employed by the platforms for communication and recruitment, which prominently featured young individuals in the platform's colours on sporty bicycles in dynamic action. Additionally, Deliveroo Germany assembled a team that participated in the colours of the platform at international messenger championships, which was communicated both to the riders and on the website. Foodora, on the other hand, did not provide their riders with helmets, but sent cycling caps to all riders unannounced in summer 2018, which come from professional cycling and have become a central fashion accessory of bicycle culture.
Riders’ motivation
The divergent recruitment strategies – low-threshold and flexibility, on the one hand, and symbolic surplus, on the other – manifested in the couriers’ motivations and led to two distinct groups. When asked why they chose this job (several answers were possible), 85% answered that they needed a job and 52% attributing the ease of access as a pivotal factor. The latter formed the group of conventional food riders who were primarily extrinsically motivated by income and the low-threshold access. Conversely, 32% of respondents indicated a specific interest in courier work. While they also expressed a general interest in income, the symbolic surplus that enhanced the value of this work played a significant role for them. These two groups, food riders and messengers, are analysed in the following.
This differentiation was also found in the interviews. In response to inquiries regarding their decision to engage in this particular job, a food rider answered: ‘I came to Germany and needed a job immediately. My German is not very good and this was the first job I could start immediately’. And another said: ‘I was looking for an additional income, since my other job does not pay very well. And then a friend told me about Foodora. Two weeks later I sat on the bike and delivered meals’. This perspective was echoed by numerous other riders.
In contrast, the smaller group of messengers emphasised other aspects: ‘I don’t see myself cleaning other people's homes. Delivering them food is not great either, but at least I am free and there's no boss up my back. And it is way cooler being something like a messenger’. And another said: ‘And I really liked this feeling of being free and roaming the city and being part of that culture and hanging out with everybody after the shift and being friends. So, I decided to start this kind of work’. For some, it was also the low-threshold nature of the platform labour that allowed them to participate in the messenger culture: ‘Well I had already been thinking a long time to do bike messaging work. […] And because I do not have very good German skills for the radio communication this does not fit very well for me’.
Some messengers also deliberately emulated the practices of the authentic messengers: ‘Because I also ride brakeless. […] It makes me feel like this typical, the fixed bike messenger who works brakeless’. During the participant observation, individual messengers in all cities stood out who did not use the bags and clothing of the platforms, but instead worked with their own equipment. Asked about this, one replied: ‘I don’t like to look like someone from Deliveroo, more like a messenger’. This option was primarily available to Deliveroo's self-employed couriers. However, as this practice also existed among Foodora's employed couriers, management advised workers specifically that wearing the platform clothing and backpack was compulsory. Failure to comply would result in a warning and, if repeated, dismissal.
Dependence
The two groups did not differ in terms of ascriptive characteristics. As described, most were relatively young (on average 29) and male (86%). The messengers were slightly better educated, and none of them came from non-Western countries. Schor and colleagues (2020) show that the perception of working conditions strongly relies on how dependent workers are on this income. In this respect, a divergence was also observed between food riders and messengers. As listed in Table 1, more than 42% of the respondents in general have a second job, more than half are looking for alternative employment opportunities, less than a third can imagine doing this job in 5 years, and 15% have to provide for others with their income. Differentiating these data according to the two groups – food riders and messengers – reveals that the latter exhibit a significantly lower degree of dependence on their employment as couriers. Of these, far fewer have a second job (if they do, it is often traditional messenger work), a large proportion of messengers are looking for another job, only three respondents can imagine doing this work in 5 years’ time, and none of the messengers have to provide for others with their income.
Dependence on food delivery work.
Similarly, about 73% of the respondents indicated that the income is not at all or only to a small extent adequate. Notably, this proportion included all couriers who were categorised as messengers in the sample. Furthermore, couriers who expressed a desire to work as messengers worked an average of 13 h less per month than food riders. These results were confirmed in the interviews. Many of the questioned food riders referred to their limited knowledge of German, which prevented them from accessing many jobs, and another described: ‘I am actually a cook. But working conditions and pay are even worse there. This is my best alternative right now’. In contrast, one messenger said: ‘Sure, the money is important for me too. But I could also do something else and earn more. But right now, it's more important for me to have the freedom and to be able to ride around the city on my bike. That's much cooler’. It is evident that messengers are much less dependent on food delivery gig work and have more alternative employment options.
Social composition as a catalyst and obstacle for collective action
Faced with the reality of platform-mediated food delivery work, the messengers expressed disappointment at the absence of a symbolic surplus. The food delivery labour process was less autonomous, and the platforms were less hip than hoped. A courier described: ‘It's all fake. At Foodora they act as if everyone is a hip messenger. They hand out stylish messenger-style caps, but in the end it's a dull job with no freedom for a huge company’. And another said: ‘We are no more individual and freer than someone on an assembly line. They just tell you you’re a cool messenger’. In everyday working life, the PO-fit between messengers and platforms was less pronounced. And the fit between messengers and their job was limited as well, as they were interested in traditional courier work, but food delivery appeared to be modularised and algorithmically controlled, leaving no room for individuality.
This prompts the question of how this affected the development of collective action. Of the total group of respondents, 86% indicated the presence of reasons to protest (see Table 2). This viewpoint was nearly unanimous among the group identified as messengers. The underlying reasons for this pronounced dissatisfaction differed. While an increase in wages was the most important for many, it was also the case for the messengers, albeit to a lesser extent. The issues of working time and the control over the labour process were a reason for protest especially for the messengers, although less among the food riders. While a significant proportion of the food riders expressed support for a flat rate for work equipment, this proposal received considerably less endorsement from the messengers.
Reasons to protest (several answers possible).
Moreover, the qualitative data demonstrate that the messengers played a pivotal role in the protests. As outlined above, this group exhibited a reduced reliance on the food delivery work and had exit options. However, at the same time, many of the messengers chose the voice option and initiated protests. Their presence was found to be significant and their participation crucial in all the protests that were observed during the research. As the interviews showed, the messengers were predominantly politically aware, and many of them were well-versed in political activism, as one of them articulated: ‘Some of us already have political experience. They know how to organise a rally, how to mobilise people and so on’. And another said: ‘I came to work as a courier, but it turned out as a new political project, next to the others I do already’. Ironically, the protests also served to reinforce the symbolic surplus of food delivery work, rendering it more appealing to some, as one interviewee reported: ‘And then I found the FAU [rank-and-file union] struggle. And I thought to get in to this job to be also part of this struggle campaign, with the old 70 s autonomous idea to work within the factories to organise the factory workers’.
However, messengers were not only catalysts but also obstacles for the long-term workers’ voice. As previously outlined, this demographic exhibited a reduced reliance on food delivery services. None of the messengers interviewed could imagine doing this work in the long term. Accordingly, while they advocated for the riders’ interests, they did not commit to institutionalised representation. One rider said: ‘I see the need for a works council and would go on strike for it, but I can’t get involved myself. I won’t be around that long anymore’. In accordance with this, in all the riders’ works council elections, a central challenge was to ensure a sufficient number of riders to fill the committee, thus guaranteeing its continuity until the next election after 4 years. The relationship between messengers and food riders became apparent in a chat conversation: We have some riders who want to call for a revolution right away. But they don’t stay long. And then there are others for whom you first have to create an awareness of works council work, protests, etc. Exactly. And those are the ones who need a works council the most.
Discussion
Specific types of work attract specific groups of individuals through their image and recruitment strategies. This fundamental assumption underlies the ASA approach, and it is reflected in the data presented here. With regard to attraction, however, the results show that the ASA approach's assumption regarding the homogeneity of attraction needs to be extended. As demonstrated, organisations communicate a diversified image and employ a range of strategies to attract a diverse pool of applicants. It is evident that symbolic attributes, in addition to instrumental attributes, take a significant role in this context. The power of values and the organisation's image on applicants, which the ASA approach assumes, exists, but focuses primarily on careers as self-fulfilling, intrinsically motivated wage labour. By contrast, less skilled workers are driven by economic rationality that prevails, which is less oriented towards the ideas and visions of management, but primarily towards access to paid work.
It is imperative for food delivery platforms to ensure the security of labour due to the multi-sided nature of the markets in which they operate. In order to address the widest possible pool of potential workers, they utilise different recruitment strategies. Firstly, these strategies appeal to potential riders by offering low-threshold access to flexible work. Secondly, they utilise the symbolic surplus of bicycle messengers by means of the platforms’ brand management. This latter aspect is a distinguishing feature of food delivery work. Instead of an individualistic explanation that assumes a diffusion of management ideas and values, strategic decisions appear to prevail in the case of food delivery.
The subsequent selection is carried out to a limited extent by the platforms themselves. Given the short retention time, the constant and increasing demand for workers and the low requirements, the riders are largely self-selecting. Thus, the platforms can only influence the attraction and thus the self-selection of workers through their recruitment strategies. The outcome of the differing strategies has resulted in the formation of two discrete groups of riders. The existence of a greater number of instrumentally motivated food riders on the one hand, and a greater number of symbolically interested messengers on the other, contradicts the homogeneity assumption of the ASA approach. The different interests and motivations of these two groups prove to be pivotal for the emergence and progression of protests.
Furthermore, the subsequent phase of the ASA cycle, attrition, is predominantly influenced by the actions of the workers. Terminations by the platforms are rare, but most of the riders tend to leave the job after a short time. This is particularly evident among messengers, who express discontent with the absence of symbolic surplus in their daily work. This finding aligns with the ASA approach, which posits that dissatisfied workers quit and a homogeneous workforce of satisfied workers remains. However, it appears that some of this group (messengers) remain on the platform and are particularly influential in the emergence and development of collective action.
According to the ASA approach, in Hirschman's (1970) terms, only exit and loyalty exist as possible options for employees. The possibility of voice as ‘discussing with an employer conditions that ought to be changed, rather than quitting the job’ (Freeman and Medoff, 1984: p. 8; Hirschman, 1970) is not considered. Yet voice is common in the world of work, frequently even institutionalised or, as shown above, especially visible in platform labour as industrial action. This points to the fact that relations in work organisations are always labour relations, a dimension that is notably absent from the view of the ASA approach. Labour relations are not merely cooperative interactions, but embedded in a context of ‘structured antagonism’ (Edwards, 1986), which, however, ‘does not determine actual events but has to be interpreted in practice’ (Edwards, 1988: p. 188).
In practice, the ASA cycle not only affects the social composition of the riders, but also the development and design of protests. The diversity of the gig labour force, as emphasised by Schor et al. (2020), is confirmed in the case of food delivery riders. Conversely, a significant degree of dissatisfaction has been observed among this latter group, a sentiment that is not exclusive to those who are particularly reliant on this job. It is noteworthy that those who are less dependent, that is, the messengers, are particularly involved in voice practices. This finding is at odds with the predominant tendency among platform workers to utilise the exit option in preference to the voice option.
This demonstrates that the adaptation of the symbolic surplus of bicycle courier subculture by the platforms engenders contradictory effects. It is part of a marketing strategy that aims to produce an image of sustainable and fast deliveries by trendy couriers. As shown, this approach constitutes a pivotal component of recruitment strategies, thereby becoming pertinent to numerous riders. However, this messenger subculture contains a symbolic surplus that emphasises values such as autonomy and an anti-establishment attitude. The platforms instrumentalise the symbolic surplus, yet they merely adopt its style, eschewing any commitment to critical or political aspects. The symbolic valorisation of work is thus only successful for some of the riders (‘better than cleaning’), whereas the messenger group is disappointed. As Michael Burawoy argues, the organisation of work is characterised not only by coercion but also by consent. Companies give ‘workers a certain autonomy […] that [allows] them to “invest in labour”’ (Burawoy, 2012: p. 188). In the case of food delivery platforms, the very autonomy that would enable messengers to establish their investment in labour is constrained, thereby amplifying the riders’ potential for protest.
As shown, the group of messengers is not only particularly interested in protests, but also possesses the necessary skills, experience and networks to organise them. This is accompanied by a stronger expression of radical and left-wing attitudes and thus a protest focus on direct action and cooperation with rank-and-file unions, as can also be observed in other countries (Vandaele et al., 2019). Furthermore, the two identified groups of riders differ in their interests. While food riders, in the sense of Boltanski and Chiapello (2007), are primarily concerned with their social security and remuneration, and thus with social critique, an artistic critique, which emphasises autonomy and self-realisation, is predominant in the messengers’ focus. As it turns out, the challenge of the protests is less to unite these different foci but rather to engage the food riders and ensure that they take over the baton. Given the German special case of the employment of the riders, most of the organising and protests, and all of the current ones, were aimed primarily at establishing works councils. The messengers are not usually available for this institutionalised voice form.
Conclusion
The article explored why food delivery is particularly characterised by conflicts, while platform labour is otherwise marked by high fragmentation. The article posits that the social composition of the riders exerts a decisive role, which in turn is influenced by the platforms’ recruitment strategies. According to this, workers in food delivery gig work are usually not specifically recruited by the platforms, but recruit themselves. The focus is therefore on the attraction that the platforms exert on workers. With promises of easily accessible and cool work, the platforms appeal to different groups, leading to a divided social composition of the workforce, which in turn brings a specific dynamic to the processes of protest.
The study yielded three key insights. First, as organisers of multi-sided markets, ensuring the supply of labour is of paramount importance for platforms. Although labour is generally considered to be particularly degraded in the context of platform-mediated services, it has been demonstrated that, due to the multi-sided nature of platforms, they are particularly dependent on workers, to the extent that they establish strategies to recruit them.
Secondly, these recruitment strategies have a significant impact on the composition of the workforce and thus on their possibility, development and strategies of collective action. It was confirmed that the platform workforce is heterogeneous and it becomes apparent that this affects the constitution of protests. The ASA approach allows to explain this relationship between recruitment strategies, social composition and protests. By emphasising the crucial role of organisations’ recruitment, it points to a little-noticed field in the sociological analysis of work and especially of gig work. As shown, however, (a) the heterogeneous social reality of organisations must be taken into account. Attraction can be multifaceted, with different groups becoming members of an organisation and shaping it differently. And (b) organisations are not a one-way system in which the founders’ beliefs and ideas prevail unilaterally. In addition to exit and loyalty, workers can use the voice option and thereby influence the composition of organisations via this route as well. Attraction-selection-attrition must therefore be complemented by attraction-selection-voice.
Thirdly, the symbolic surplus proves to be an important element for analysing the relationship between recruitment, social composition and collective action. While organisations frequently place emphasis on the physical appearance of their employees (aesthetic labour; Warhurst and Nickson, 2001), the reverse is also true: The image of organisations and forms of work is relevant to workers. The concept of a symbolic surplus is of particular interest in this context, as it functions as both an immaterial compensation and a central element of recruitment strategies. If fulfilled, the symbolic surplus can increase engagement in work even under otherwise precarious working conditions (e.g., bicycle messengers). If, on the other hand, it is disappointed, that is, the PO-fit expected by the workers is not realised, it can be a source of contention and protest.
It should be noted that the article is subject to inherent theoretical and methodological limitations. A further elaboration of the argument presented here would require a more in-depth engagement with debates on both collective action and the social composition of workers. Methodologically, the importance of the mixed methods research design should be emphasised. The combination of the different methods allowed to identify the different groups and their meaning in detail. The flip side is that quantitative data on platform labour is typically exploratory and lacks representativeness. Moreover, the analysis is constrained to the German context and on food delivery gig work. An analysis of the symbolic surplus in other countries and other forms of platform labour would be a promising endeavour. Beyond the field of platform labour, further discussions of the ASA approach from a sociology of labour perspective are promising in order to theorise and investigate the relevance of recruiting and the related social composition more specifically.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research was funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation (PhD Grant). The publication was supported by the Open Access Publication Funds of the Göttingen University.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.