The multiplicity of delivery workers\' views on platform work: from valuing flexibility to forms of cooperation and resistance

Author(s)

André Scerb

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2024-06-07

Examining board members

Alvaro Augusto Comin; Caetano Patta da Porciuncula e Barros; Rafael do Nascimento Grohmann; Ianaira Barretto Souza Neves

• Advisor: Alvaro Augusto Comin

Abstract

This work, which is part of the study agenda that examines the platformization process and its impacts on the world of work, has the main goal of discussing the perceptions and discourses formulated by delivery people who work through digital platforms regarding the conditions and the daily life experienced in carrying out this activity. The study was based on field research on two fronts; one in person, which involved conducting interviews, in addition to carrying out participant observation acting as a delivery person on delivery platforms in the city of São Paulo, and another, digital, based on monitoring and analyzing the interactions of delivery men in groups conversation on instant messaging applications. It is argued that the perceptions of these subjects regarding their work, despite the particularities and heterogeneity of profiles of those who make up the group, are formulated in terms of the advantages and disadvantages they see at work, which are, in general, elaborated based on other occupational experiences experienced in their careers and the prospects for professional insertion that they envisage or not. The notions of flexibility, autonomy, and the feeling that they earn money according to their own effort are considered great conveniences of this type of work by the majority of these workers. In a second part of the research, it focuses on the uses made by delivery people of instant communication platforms and defends the argument that they serve as an instrument of socialization between group members, but more than that, as a counterbalancing tool of the algorithmic power of platforms, as they are mobilized as a space for exchanging experiences, resolving doubts and problems in the face of the asymmetry of power and information that is characteristic of the so-called algorithmic management. It is also argued that communication established through messaging platforms are instruments of resistance because they also serve the mobilization and organization of workers that derive from sharing and collective elaboration carried out through the exchange of experiences, which, ultimately, promotes the formation of identities within the group (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 21/03544-8 - Algorithmic management: a study of perceptions of drivers and delivery people about work on platforms
• Grantee: André Scerb
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master