Strategies to Organise Platform Workers
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Event Report
This event report is based on proceedings from a panel hosted at the 2022 edition of RightsCon. Hosted by the labour and digitalisation team at CIS, the panel brought together seasoned labour organisers, activists, and researchers working across Thailand, Nigeria, India, and Argentina. The panellists represented a diverse group of worker organisations, including transnational federations, national unions, and informally organised movements.
Their experiences of organising in research and practice infused our discussion with insight into collective action struggles across varied sectors and platform economies in the global south. Collective resistance among platform workers has witnessed a sustained rise in these economies over the past three years, with demands for transparency and accountability from platforms, and for a guarantee of rights and protections from governments.
Through this panel, we sought to answer:
- How have workers’ organisations overcome challenges in sustained collective action?
- What have been unique aspects of organising in the global south?
- Which strategies have been gaining traction for organising workers and mobilising other stakeholders?
Placing workers’ participation front and centre, the panellists incorporated common threads around campaigning, education, and mobilisation for increasing worker participation, as well as bargaining with the government for legal and social protections. The panellists highlighted that it’s the resilience and resistance led by workers that drive the way for sustained organising. This panel hoped to spotlight steps taken in that direction, where organising efforts strive to form, sustain, and champion worker-led movements.
Contributors
Panellists:
Akkanut Wantanasombut
Ayoade Ibrahim
Rikta Krishnawamy
Sofía Scasserra
Worker organisations in focus:
Tamsang-Tamsong
National Union of Professional App-based Transport Workers
International Alliance of App-based Transport Workers
All India Gig Workers’ Union
Federación Argentina de Empleados de Comercio y Servicios
Asociación de Personal de Plataformas
Conceptualisation and planning: Ambika Tandon, Chiara Furtado, Aayush Rathi, and Abhishek Sekharan
Author: Chiara Furtado
Reviewers: Ambika Tandon and Nishkala Sekhar
Designer: Annushka Jaliwala
This event report is part of research supported by the Internet Society Foundation under the ‘Labour futures’ grant.
