Solidarity across boundaries: a new practice of collectivity among workers in the app-based transport sector in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

This article discusses new practices of collectivity among drivers in the app-based transport sector in Indonesia, with a case study of motorbike taxi drivers in the country’s two major platform companies Go-Jek and Grab. It describes the emergence of transport-related digital platforms and replacement of indigenous transport. The author analyses the labour process and labour control in app-based transport and how drivers resist such algorithmic control. It also highlights the current three models of drivers’ organizing (community, association and union), and argues that drivers’ practices of collectivity offer invaluable lessons and insights into the development of a new strategy of labour solidarity, relevant for the broader labour movement.

KEYWORDS:

• App-based transport workers
• labour control
• digital platform
• algorithmic resistance
• labour solidarity
• collectivity

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to Syarif Arifin, Sugeng Riyadi, Dina Septi Utami, Abu Mufakhir and other colleagues at LIPS for their ideas and companion in the field works, and to the workers I encountered for their supports. I want to express my gratitude to Andreas Bieler, Joerg Nowak, Michele Ford, Bambang Dahana, Hari Nugroho and the anonymous referees for their constructive and extensive feedback on earlier draft of this article. My special gratitude to Melisa Serrano, Thomas Greven and Mirko Herberg for the discussion about this research project under FES ‘Trade Union in Transformation 4.0’. Any errors found in this article are solely my mistakes.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Community transport that supplements fixed-route transport by providing individualized rides without fixed routes or timetables.

2 Opang is a short form of ‘ojek pangkalan’, meaning the indigenous motorbike taxi service (ojek) waiting for a fare at a base/rank (pangkalan).

3 As it becomes a regular income, this amount is mostly managed by the head of the neighbourhood, which would be distributed to different individuals and institutions, often including local gangsters and authorities (police and military) for legitimacy and protection.

4 This was popularly articulated as ‘krismon’, a short form of ‘krisis moneter’, meaning monetary crisis.

5 This online motorbike taxi booking service is popularly known as ‘ojol’, a short form of ‘ojek online’, which means online motorbike taxi.

6 This is a term used by drivers to denote a fake global positioning system (fake GPS). Literally, tuyul means a spirit that obtains wealth for its human master. It is a mythical spirit in Malay mythology in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore.

7 IT stands for Information and Technology and ‘jalanan’ literally means street, a popular space for marginalized people. Here, jalanan refers to a brand of activism advocating marginalized people.

Additional information

Funding

The research was generously supported by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES).

Notes on contributors

Fahmi Panimbang

Fahmi Panimbang is a labour activist based in Indonesia. His publications include Resistance on the continent of labour: Strategies and initiatives of labour organizing in Asia (2017).