Worker power in self-organised networks: Algorithmic management, solidarity and resistance on platforms

Abstract

This article examines the mobilising and organising practices of ride-hailing drivers in Africa. It draws on the labour process and power resources approaches to foreground the role of socio-political contexts in understanding how platform workers, who are normally understood to be atomised and fragmented, build independent self-organised solidarity networks to exert their power with variable outcomes. It argues that platform workers’ self-organised networks are an important outlet for worker power outside the domains of established unions. In the context of the platform economy, worker power rarely materialises into a meaningful front for resistance and instead their actions can be understood as resilience and reworking of the system to extract material and non-material rewards. This is particularly relevant for workers in some of the most marginalised parts of the world, such as Africa. Drawing on multi-country and multi-year study utilising in-depth interviews with African Uber drivers and leaders of driver groups and digital ethnography of worker communication channels, the paper outlines several socio-economic and political constraints faced by ride-hailing drivers which can inhibit collective resistance.