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      Call for Papers: Hierarchies of domesticity – spatial and social boundaries. Deadline for submissions is 30th September, 2024. Full details can be read here.

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      Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation

      Volume 15, Issue 1
       
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      Flexibility and freedom for whom? Precarity, freedom and flexibility in on-demand food delivery

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            Abstract

            On-demand delivery platforms appropriate ‘freedom’ and ‘flexibility’ discourses with claims such as ‘be your own boss’ and ‘work as much as you want to’. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Deliveroo updated its courier platform application with a ‘free login system’ in Barcelona whereby platform couriers could connect to the platform whenever, wherever, and as often as they wanted to. In this paper, we ask why the introduction of a ‘free login’ system generated even more precarious forms of work, by comparing workforce management systems both before and during the COVID-19 period. We argue that the reason it becomes problematic is rooted in Deliveroo's business model, which is characterised by hiring on-demand, using a piece-rate payment and exercising hard workforce control through algorithmic management.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Journal
            Journal ID (doi): 10.2307/j50010512
            Journal ID (jcode): workorgalaboglob
            Title: Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation
            Publisher: Pluto Journals
            ISSN: 1745-641X
            ISSN: 1745-6428
            Publication date (Print): 1 January 2021
            Volume: 15
            Issue: 1 ( doiID: 10.13169/workorgalaboglob.15.issue-1 )
            Pages: 46-68
            Article
            Publisher ID: workorgalaboglob.15.1.0046
            DOI: 10.13169/workorgalaboglob.15.1.0046
            SO-VID: 8430f475-3694-4259-93ad-01a1cb9b4024
            Copyright © © Melissa Renau Cano, Ricard Espelt and Mayo Fuster Morell, 2021
            License:

            All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

            History
            Custom metadata
            lang eng

            ScienceOpen disciplines: Sociology,Labor law,Political science,Labor & Demographic economics,Political economics
            Keywords: gig economy,labour process control,platform work,flexibility,Deliveroo,freedom

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