New labour formations, precarious workers, and the gig economy

Abstract

This chapter argues that in order to develop sufficient weight to gain concessions from employers, these workers need strategies to cumulate power drawing on a variety of sources. It outlines the typology of workers powers to analyse the case study of indie unions, labour formations which have proven quite effective at negotiating precarious workers’ rights in Britain. The chapter provides the case study comprises an overview of these unions and a discussion of their negotiating power, in terms of structural, associational, institutional, coalitional and discursive power. It outlines the importance for labour formations representing precarious workers to combine synergistically such powers to enhance the effectiveness at negotiating the rights of their constituencies. By virtue of their position in the productive system/economy, some precarious and migrant workers have more potential to disrupt or stop production than others.