Bargaining power of gig workers

Introduction

The bargaining power of gig workers is a critical issue in the modern labor market, where traditional employment structures are being replaced by more flexible, yet often precarious, gig work arrangements. This synthesis explores the various strategies and challenges gig workers face in enhancing their bargaining power and negotiating better terms with employers.

Key Insights

Self-Organization and Communicative Unionism:
- Gig workers, especially precarious and migrant workers, are increasingly turning to self-organization and "indie" unions to negotiate effectively with employers. These unions use vibrant direct action and self-mediated messages to resonate with the public and media, enhancing their bargaining power.
Legal and Policy Frameworks:
- There are several legal avenues to support collective bargaining for gig workers under EU competition law, including classifying gig workers as employees, creating exceptions for collective bargaining, and encouraging member states to enact supportive laws.
- In the Indonesian ride-hailing sector, the absence of collective bargaining rights has led to proposals for meaningful partnership consultations, which could serve as a preemptive remedy to human rights impacts and improve mutual consent in contracts.
Economic Models and Bargaining Power:
- A dynamic principal-agent model shows that a gig worker's bargaining power is influenced by their vulnerability parameter, which measures their ability to withstand unemployment. Workers with low vulnerability can negotiate better terms, while those with high vulnerability are more likely to be exploited.
Psychological and Organizational Adaptations:
- Gig workers adapt to the lack of traditional employment benefits and job security by engaging in job crafting, work identity management, and self-development. They also balance autonomy and dependence, often dealing with pay volatility and limited organizational training.

Conclusion

Gig workers enhance their bargaining power through self-organization, legal frameworks, and economic strategies. Self-organized unions and communicative unionism play a significant role in effective negotiations. Legal and policy interventions can provide structural support for collective bargaining. Economic models highlight the importance of a worker's ability to withstand unemployment in negotiating better terms. Finally, gig workers adapt psychologically and organizationally to the unique challenges of gig work, further influencing their bargaining power.

Bargaining power of gig workers

Summary

Introduction

Key Insights

Conclusion

Sources and full results

Advancing Workers’ Rights in the Gig Economy through Discursive Power: The Communicative Strategies of Indie Unions

Effective negotiations for gig economy workers can be enhanced by strategically integrating direct action and self-mediated messages, known as communicative unionism, to resonate with the general public and mainstream media.

'I’ll call my Union', said the driver - Collective bargaining of Gig Workers under EU Competition Rules

Self-respecting worker in the gig economy: A dynamic principal-agent model

The dynamic principal-agent model explains the nature of gig worker contracts, revealing that employers can sacrifice instantaneous profit to regulate worker demand, potentially resulting in higher profits.

The organizational psychology of gig work: An integrative conceptual review.

Gig work alters the traditional psychological contract, requiring gig workers to adapt to project-based compensation, nontraditional management practices, and self-development.

Partnership Consultation: An Alternative Solution to the Nonexistent Collective Bargaining Right in the Indonesian Ride Hailing Gig Economy Sector

Partnership consultation, a concept borrowed from collective bargaining in labor relations, can improve the human rights situation of app drivers in the Indonesian ride-hailing gig economy sector.

Hidden transcripts of the gig economy: labour agency and the new art of resistance among African gig workers

African gig workers manage constraints in the gig economy through diverse everyday resilience, reworking, and resistance practices, highlighting the importance of labor agency in the gig economy.

Locating Worker Power in a Changing Bargaining Scenario

The future of industrial relations in India depends on recognizing the power of workers' aggregations and incorporating their diverse functions and relations into the bargaining process.

Digital labour and development: impacts of global digital labour platforms and the gig economy on worker livelihoods

Digital labor platforms and the gig economy can provide benefits for workers, but also pose risks and costs, highlighting the need for certification schemes, organizing, regulatory strategies, and democratic control of online labor platforms.

The Impact of Worker Bargaining Power on the Organization of Global Firms

Worker bargaining power can encourage vertical fragmentation in global firms, especially in capital-intensive industries with specific investments.

Autonomous regulation of work in the gig economy: The first collective bargaining agreement for riders in Sweden

The first Swedish collective bargaining agreement for food delivery platform workers shows how pre-existing labor law norms both constrain and enable trade unions and collective bargaining in the gig economy.

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