The Platform Work Directive has reached a crucial stage. The European Parliament’s Employment Committee has backed a text led by the parliament’s Rapporteur, Elisabetta Gualmini, which would strengthen the provisions for workers in the initial draft published by the European Commission in December 2021. A vote will take place in January of the whole Parliament on the Gualmini text.

Meanwhile, the Council of the EU failed to come to an agreement on its proposed changes, after the Czech Presidency of the Council sought to push the Directive in a pro-platform lobby direction. When the Council eventually does come to a decision, the Parliament and the Council may have to work out how to reconcile two texts moving in opposite directions.

Thus, there may still be an opportunity for workers’ to influence the final outcome of a Directive that will have a profound impact on platform workers’ rights in Europe and beyond. In that context, the recent intervention into the debate over the Directive by UK-based Worker Info Exchange (WIE) and Spanish-based The Observatory of Work, Algorithms & Society (TAS) is significant.

"Workers’ Recommendations on the Draft EU Platform Work Directive” was published by WIE and TAS earlier this month. The report is the most comprehensive proposal for how the Directive should be improved to come from worker organisations in Europe so far.

To discuss the report, and the work of WIE and TAS more broadly, the Gig Economy Project spoke to its authors. James Farrar is the founder and director of WIE, as well as General Secretary of the App Drivers & Couriers Union (ADCU), which led the historic defeat of Uber at the UK Supreme Court last year. Sergi Cutillas is an economist and researcher, who is a member of TAS and has conducted research for taxi union Elité Taxi Barcelona.

In this podcast, we discuss:

01.30: How did the collaboration between WIE and TAS come about?

08:10: A presumption of employment for platform workers?

20:21: Algorithmic management and the need for a ‘human model’ in the platform work directive

38:52: The roots of WIE and TAS, and next steps

They call data the oil of the 21st century. Without it, the digital economy as we know it would grind to a halt. And just like oil, unrefined data is pretty useless - it’s what you do with the data that makes it valuable.

What is done with data, and who has power over it, is what preoccupies Jessica Pidoux, director of the NGO PersonalData.IO and a lecturer in the sociology of data at SciencesPo university in Paris.

Pidoux has studied the algorithms of match-dating apps like Tinder, finding they re-produce sexist and patriarchal practices. And she has also applied her data techniques to the gig economy, working, along with her colleagues at Hestia Labs, with an Uber driver in Geneva, Switzerland, to analyse his data at work and understand what information the platforms are keeping to themselves, as we wrote about on the Gig Economy Project (GEP) earlier this week.

Speaking at an event in the European Parliament in September on alternatives to Uberisation, Pidoux said: “Workers can take back this data power.”

In this podcast, GEP speaks to Pidoux to find out more about her critique of data power in the platform economy, what she thinks the alternative is and how she is helping workers build their data power. We discuss:

01:02: Why does data matter and what’s the problem with the status quo?

03:33: The case of Cabify and the Catalan Minister of Transport

07:03: What’s the alternative to a platform-dominated data economy?

09:24: An Uber driver in Geneva’s pursuit of his data

19:20: The Rider’s Law and trade unions accessing the data

22:30: Pidoux’s academic work and Tinder investigation

28:35: How PersonalData.Io can help you access your data

Sweden goes to the polls on 11 September, in an election that comes in the midst of Europe’s twin economic and geopolitical crisis, with the war in Ukraine rumbling on and inflation surging across the continent.

What could the election mean for Sweden’s gig economy? Sweden has been traditionally associated with strong trade unions and a collaborative relationship with management, in what is called the Swedish model (or ‘the Nordic model’). But the country has been slow in responding to the emergence of the gig economy, and has been the only EU member-state to object to the EU platform work directive, which is currently going through the legislative process.

A new report by GigWatch, a non-profit initiative to examine the reality of the gig economy in Sweden, looks at the attitude of Sweden’s main political parties towards the gig economy, and analyses the prospects for regulatory change following the election.

To discuss the report, the Gig Economy Project spoke to Felix Söderberg and Jacob Lundberg, trade-union activists and members of GigWatch. We discuss:

01:06: An overview of the gig economy in Sweden

04:20: GigWatch’s research on Sweden’s political parties’ attitudes towards the gig economy

10:04: The EU Platform work directive and the Swedish model - resistance to change

23:10: Gig worker organising and trade unions in Sweden

30:32: The gig economy in Sweden after the election

The Uber Files revelations have let a thousand questions bloom about this Silicon Valley company that has broken all the rules, accumulated massive power over cities across the globe, but has never achieved a profit, and has so far failed in many of its stated ambitions to transform the transport sector for good.

To begin to piece together some answers, the Gig Economy Project spoke to Paris Marx, host of the popular ‘Tech Won’t Save Us’ podcast and author of new book ‘Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation’, published by Verso in July.

In this podcast, we discuss:

01:04: Key takeaways from the Uber Files and the reaction to it

12:15: Silicon Valley’s vision for transport and why it has failed

26:55: What changes should we make to the transport system?

34:28: What next for Uber?

What is it really like to be a rider in the city? Laura Carrer, freelance journalist on tech and its implications for digital and human rights, and Luca Quagliato, freelance video maker and photographer who previously worked as a rider, explore this theme in an upcoming documentary, which will include footage of riders explaining their reality across Europe and an animation depicting the experience of being a rider.

The film will be released early next year on IRPI Media, an Italian investigation news room which has published a series of investigations on platform work in Italy in it’s ‘Life is a Game’ series.

In this podcast, Ben Wray, co-ordinator of the Gig Economy Project, met with the two Milanese in Berlin, one of five European cities where they have been filming riders.

They discuss:

01:08: Why food delivery?

04:58: The reality of food delivery in Italy

12:08: What they learnt from speaking to riders all across Europe

16:22: The animation part of the documentary, gamification and the role of riders in the city

25:57: How can people see the documentary?

Germany is Europe’s largest economy, and it’s also a key site for Europe’s digital labour platforms, both as a major market and a source of venture capital funding for start-up’s in the gig economy.

Berlin, in particular, is the second most popular city in Europe for venture capital funding, and is the home of Delivery Hero, one of the world’s largest food delivery platforms, and Gorillas, the first European tech start-up to become a ‘Unicorn’ - achieve a valuation over €1 billion - within a year.

And where there is digital labour platforms, there is platform workers. Over the past 18 months, Berlin has been one of the hotbeds of platform worker resistance in Europe, most notably at Gorillas, where workers have dared to shutdown warehouses at a moment’s notice to fight for better working conditions, and established the first Worker’s Council at a food delivery platform.

Oğuz Alyanak, a cultural anthropologist at the Technical University of Berlin, has been following all of this through his work as a post-doctorate with Fair Work, the academic-action project which rates digital labour platforms based on how fair there working conditions are. Alyanak was one of the authors of the German Fair Work platform ratings report in March, and has also been actively involved in the movement of food and grocery delivery workers in the city, attending demonstrations and picket lines.

The Gig Economy Project caught up with Alyanak in Berlin to get his thoughts on the movement in Berlin and the platform economy in Germany more broadly. In this podcast, we discuss:

01:30: The Berlin food and grocery delivery workers movement

17:12: The recent jobs cuts in the sector

23:30: What’s distinct about Germany’s platform economy?

28:16: The problem of sub-contracting in the platform economy

33:50: The platform economy beyond transport delivery

France has been the beating heart of many of the great labour disputes of the past, and now it is at the centre of the debate over the future of work in Europe’s digital economy.

Last week, the French Parliament passed a ‘social dialogue law’, which President Emmanuel Macron’s government says will provide a basis for ‘independent’ gig workers to negotiate with the food delivery and ride-hail platforms they work for. Opponents on the left have described the law as “the institutionalisation of Uberisation”.

Meanwhile, Macron has just taken up the rotating Presidency of the EU Council as it considers the EU Commission’s ‘Platform Work Directive’, which proposed a presumption of employment for platform workers. Macron - widely considered to be an ally of the digital platforms - may use his influence on the council to amend the Directive.

Finally, the French Presidential elections are just a few months away, which could have a big impact on what happens next in France’s gig economy.

Edouard Bernasse is co-founder and secretary-general of the Collective of Autonomous Platform Delivery Workers (CLAP) in Paris. In this podcast, we discuss:

1:49: Why CLAP?

9:28: The shape of France’s food delivery sector

12:26: Platform worker’s status in France and the ‘social dialogue’ law

31:29: The EU Platform Work Directive and Macron’s role on the EU Council

37:18: France’s Presidential elections and the gig economy

The Stuart Delivery strike is the longest ever in the UK’s gig economy. Initially running for 18 days from 6-24 December, it re-started again on 10 January.

Starting in Sheffield, the strike spread to six towns and cities across the north of England, and the couriers, members of the IWGB union, plan to continue until their demands for higher pay are met.

In this Gig Economy Project podcast we are joined by Khalil Lange, Sheffield Stuart Delivery courier and one of the strike’s leaders, and Jake Thomas, a courier in London and the IWGB’s courier branch secretary. We discuss:

01:12: Lange’s journey to becoming a courier and trade unionist, and how the strike got started

03:21: The spread of the strike and what makes it unprecedented

07:49: The mood of the strikers and the attitude of the company

11:59: Just Eat and sub-contracting

15:00: The dispute over Stuart Delivery’s “linear pay” system

19:58: The current situation on the ground

22:45: The historic significance of the strike

25:19: How can people support the strike?

The Gig Economy Project spoke to Alex Marshall, President of the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) and former delivery courier.

This podcast was first published 27/01/21.

You can read a text version of this interview here. 

Can self-employed workers help rejuvenate trade unionism in Europe? Martin Willems thinks so.

Willems is responsible for the United Freelancers section of the ACV-CSC union, which represents 1.5 million workers in Belgium, and has been at the forefront of efforts to organise gig workers.

He made the case at two major gig economy conferences in Brussels at the end of October that unions must take seriously organising all workers, no matter whether they are employees, self-employed or bogus self-employed.

The Gig Economy Project spoke to Willems about self-employed unions, the gig economy in Belgium and how to ensure bogus self-employed platform workers get labour rights.

This podcast was first published on 08/11/21.

You can read the text version of this interview here.