[Petit Fours #384] On worker data science, aligning interests, and taking a break
Hi, everyone! Without further ado, here's what I've got for you today:
#1 Digital worker inquiry and the critical potential of participatory worker data science for on‐demand platform workers, by Cailean Gallagher, Karen Gregory, and Boyan Karabaliev, challenges us to consider the potential (and bounds) of what can be accomplished with the help of collaborative research: "The knowledge that workers have of the systems they work under is an outcome of strategic choices by platforms and by workers themselves. Based on three initiatives undertaken by food distribution workers in Scotland, this article explores the obstacles that platform workers face when conducting inquiries into their systems of control, and investigates the potential for workers to overcome these obstacles through collaborative research projects. By drawing analogies from the history of workers' inquiries into changing labour processes, the article evaluates these three initiatives in light of previous efforts by workers to monitor complex and concealed management structures. It offers a new concept of ‘worker data science’ to describe the techniques, skills and methods that workers require to arrive at answers to questions that emerge through their inquiries, and concludes that such purposive science has the potential to equip workers to support one another and to resist and challenge some of the commands and calculations that emerge from platforms' hidden algorithmic systems."
#2 What do platform workers in the UK gig economy want?, by Nicholas Martindale, Alex J. Wood, and Brendan J. Burchell, is another new article that's well worth a read: "Despite the considerable debate concerning the gig economy, research has yet to investigate what platform workers themselves want. In part, this is due to the difficulty of undertaking traditional social surveys in this sector. Therefore, this article makes use of a novel research design that generates a strategic non-probability sample of 510 platform workers with which to investigate workers’ preferences regarding labour rights, representation and voice. Findings suggest strong support for labour rights, trade unions and co-determination. The low pay, insecurity, risk and lack of organizational voice that we find provides a rationale for these preferences. Moreover, platform workers’ preferences are seemingly influenced by wider inequalities, with significant differences according to gender and country of birth."
#3 In a shorter piece, Lindsey D. Cameron and Kalie M. Mayberry describe How Gig Work Pits Customers Against Workers.
#4 For something a little different in the same domain, check out the photos Rest of the World captured by shadowing workers in São Paulo, Lagos, Dhaka, and Jakarta "to get an intimate look at how they spend their breaks between orders": Portraits of gig workers in rare moments off the clock.
-A