The Uberisation of work: the challenge of regulating platform capitalism. A commentary

ABSTRACT

Under platform capitalism a new business model and a new work order has emerged. The tech giants such as Uber, Amazon and Apple that drive this business model have unprecedented levels of power . This power lies in the hands of a few individuals who divest themselves from employment responsibilities through technology-enabled outsourcing and subcontracting practices that remotely manage their fragmented supply chains. A new form of algorithmic control is introduced where “workers” are managed through on line platforms, monitored indirectly and expected to produce measurable outputs. However, the model is generating open resistance across the globe and new ways of regulating these companies is emerging. Drawing on a range of recent publications I argue that to be effective these attempts at regulation will require a coordinated challenge from above as well as below. This requires a deeper understanding of the new forms of ownership in the platform economy, the nature of this new world of work and the responses being made by this global workforce.

KEYWORDS:

• Precarious work
• platform capitalism
• new work order
• regulation

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. The senior engineer wrote in his resignation letter that these conditions are ‘evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture.I choose neither to serve nor drink that poison’.

2. Some classes of shares give ‘executive owners’ the power to control a corporation’s decision making without having a voting majority in exchange for taking a lower share of profit.

3. Interestingly, the executive owners of these tech giants are often very visible as philanthropists contributing substantially to worthy causes but are largely invisible when it comes to questions of employment.

4. For a fuller development of this argument, see Anwar and Graham (2020).

5. Getting detailed answers to these questions will not be easy and most of what we know is anecdotal derived from the financial press. Most of the Big tech companies have charismatic leaders (eg Jack Ma at Alibaba and Elton Musk at Tesla) and they are skilful at getting their way with regulatorsand governments, e.g. Tesla’s early opening in California following Covid shutdown. The one exception is the EU as they are prepared to take on the Tech giants through their member states (Email communication,Jerry Coakley, Professor of Finance, Essex Business School, University of Essex. 14 May 2020.