The scientific journal Work Employment and Society has published “the first global analysis of platform worker protests.” The authors of the article “Platform workers’ protests in a global perspective: how, where and why do platform workers protest?” are Simon Joyce, Vera Trappmann, Mark Stuart and Charles Umney, who participate in the research project “Platform Worker Protest Index” at the University of Leeds (UK).
Researchers identified a total of 1,721 cases of labor protests around the world. They drew information mainly from press reports from January 2017 to August 2020, regarding passenger transport and the delivery of food, groceries and courier parcels.
The analysis asks three main questions: “What are the most important motives for platform workers’ protests? What actors and tactics are involved in platform worker protests? How do these protests differ depending on the regional context?”
We will discuss the results of this research in more detail in the coming weeks.