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Abstract
The development of platform capitalism is restructuring social relations across the globe by altering traditional hierarchical structures, internal labour relations and their micro-political interactions. Digitally mediated platforms appear to be changing relational dynamics, contributing to a growth in individualisation among the workers. The platform economy, in general, and ride-hailing services, in particular, represent an emerging capitalistic regime that is breeding a working class with often contradictory class locations and class positions. Because the class dimension in the existing literature concerning platform workers in India has been less critically approached, this research intends to use class-based theorisation to analyse capital–labour relations in the ride-hailing service, with the aim of reflecting on the linkages between class location, class consciousness and class practices among the workers. This article highlights how the internal contradictions, combined with the external structural factors, lead to growing instrumental collectivism among the platform working class that falls short of challenging the capitalistic platform regime.
Highlights
Mediated platforms are leading to intensive restructuring in labour relations and their micro-political interactions vis-à-vis traditional hierarchical structures
One ride-hailing union leader in Delhi stated: The companies are cheating the workers with massive discrepancies in tax deductions and the amount that goes to the state account . . . I have been in ride-hailing service since 2011 where the companies regularly charged 6% from each ride as Tax Deducted at Source [TDS] . . . but when I filed an RTI [Right to Information], the amount deposited to the state account till date was only shown to be Rs. 128
Platformisation is leading to a massive restructuring in capital-labour relations (De Moortel and Vanroelen, 2017; De Stefano, 2017; De Stefano & Aloisi, 2018; De Stefano, 2019; Kaine & Josserand 2019; Koutsimpogiorgos, Slageren, Herrmann & Frenken, 2020), as well as the core class dimensions fundamental to these digitised relations (Josserand & Kaine, 2019; Marton & Ekbia, 2019; Englert, Woodcock & Cant 2020)
Summary
Mediated platforms are leading to intensive restructuring in labour relations and their micro-political interactions vis-à-vis traditional hierarchical structures. The platform capitalist models dwell on a hyper-precarious extension of prior forms of work intermediation that extracts value from unwaged or token-waged labour (Marton & Ekbia, 2019; Griesbach, Reich, EliotNegri & Milkman, 2019; Barratt, Goods & Veen, 2020) These economies create a pseudo employment market in which workers are hired as independent contractors rather than employees to provide services via digital platforms (Sargeant, 2017; Duggan, Shennan, Carbery & McDonnell, 2019; Barratt, Goods & Veen, 2020). The platform economies are seen to be banking on substantive individualisation that breeds atomisation and lateral competition among the workers, limiting solidaristic development
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