Trade Unions in the Gig Economy

Abstract

As the global gig economy grows in size and relevance, trade unions across the world have increasingly attempted to more systematically organize and represent gig economy workers. Unions seeking to intervene in the gig economy face a host of challenges related both to the characteristics of the gig economy labor process and to the legal framework within which gig workers have thus far been inscribed. These challenges include the workforce's physical dispersion, particularly pronounced for online labor platforms, which hinders workers' capacities to build associational power; the potential pervasiveness of forms of “techno‐normative” control to which gig workers are subject; the internal fragmentation and differentiation of the gig workforce, which might hinder the consolidation of solidaristic attachments among workers; and gig workers' legal classification as independent contractors, which limits the applicability of institutions of collective bargaining and the ability to use conventional channels for workers' voices.