«Riders on the Storm» 26 November 2020 2.00-4.30 pm Berlin Time, Online

The platform economy is growing – the number of online offers is rising and so is, in the case of delivery, the number of riders on the roads. The pandemic has further increased the demand for online services among the well-situated, leading platforms to further expand their business.

Meanwhile, many workers who have lost their formal jobs now seek to work in the platform economy. In most cases, these workers find themselves in bogus or disguised self-employment with bad working conditions. The platforms, while acting as the real employers on many levels deny their responsibility and have not been regulated to ensure workers‘ protection.

With this session, we aim to present and discuss strategies of transport workers and trade unions in Argentina, Indonesia, Korea, Belgium, the Netherlands and Uganda that challenge the digital platform companies. You will hear about new approaches and learn what power resources they have made use of to organize and fight for workers’ rights.

The event will be translated simultaneously in English/Spanish/Portuguese/French. To join us for the discussion please register here.

• Introduction and overview: Dominique Klawonn, FES

Speakers:

• Vera Trappmann, Leeds University, England; Co-Author of the FES study “Global Labour Unrest on Platforms – The case of food delivery workers”, accessible here. Short Version: In English. Un resumen: En español
• Laura Perelman, Instituto de Desarrollo Económico y Social – IDES (Institute for Economic and Social Development), Argentina; Co-Author of the FES study “Proudly delivered by APP – The struggle of Latin America’s first union for platform workers”, accessible here. Short Version: In English. Un resumen: En español. Un résumé: En français.
• Fahmi Panimbang, Director Lembaga Informasi Perburuhan Sedane - LIPS (Sedane Labour Resource Centre), Indonesia; Co-Author of the FES study “Resisting Exploitation by Algorithms – Drivers’ Contestation of App-based Transport in Indonesia”, accessible here. Short Version: In English. Un resumen: En español. Un résumé: En français.
• Erick Manga, University of Nairobi, UON Institute for Development Studies (IDS), Co-Author of the FES study “Riding on a Union APP – Uganda’s Public Transport Workers’ Digital Response to Platforms”, accessible here. Short Version:  In English
• Aelim Yun, Centre for Labour & Welfare Law at the Seoul National University, South Korea; Author of the FES study “Safety for the Public, Rights for the Driver – South Korea’s transport workers campaign for safe rates”, accessible here. Short Version: In English.
• Kurt Vandaele, European Trade Union Institute (etui), Belgium; Author of the FES study “From Street Protest to “Improvisational Unionism” – Platform-based food delivery couriers in Belgium and the Netherlands”, accessible here. Short Version: In English. Un resumen: En español. Un résumé: En français.

• Comment from Stephenson Kisungu, ITF; Co-Author of the FES study “Riding on a Union APP – Uganda’s Public Transport Workers’ Digital Response to Platforms”, accessible here

Moderators: Melisa Serrano, GLU/University of the Philippines and Victoria Basualdo, CONICET-Area of Economics and Technology, FLACSO

We look forward to welcoming you! Live-Stream

«Trade Unions in Transformation 4.0» is a FES-initiated project that aims to understand workers’ agency in digital capitalism. This project examines how trade unions and new organizations of workers build workers’ power to confront and shape the emerging new world of work in which capital uses digital technology to re-organize the production process and increasingly imposes ultra-flexible, precarious work models. FES aims to contribute to workers’ and trade unions’ reflections and strategies and offers cooperation for union transformation.

Subsequent sessions will explore how workers and unions shape transformations in industry, how tech workers start to become an exciting player in the labour movement, how transport workers resist the restructuring of their sector by platforms and what new tools and apps unions develop to increase their power in the digital economy.