Table Of ContentPLATFORM LABOUR
AND GLOBAL LOGISTICS
Over the last 50 years the global labour market is transforming from reliable
employment to low-wage and unstable informal and precarious jobs. This ineluctable
shift is a consequence of the concentrated application of neoliberalism since the 1980s
as capitalism has been converting standardized labour markets in the developed Global
North into contingent and informal labour.
Platform Labour and Global Logistics: A Research Companion examines the most
important developments in and features of global logistics and the emergence of the
platform economy through historical comparative chapters and case studies. Part
I surveys the logistics revolution and its impact on labour in key sectors of the global
economy and probes the viability of the platform as a generator of economic and
financial growth and innovation. The chapters of Part I offer a fulsome analysis and
critique of the economic and technical reconfiguration brought on by neoliberal
capitalism and the diffusion of the platform and logistics as a feasible model into the
future. Part II examines labour restructuring from standardized to informal work
through the platform and information technology, and the political and environmental
challenges to labour. Part III provides global case studies on the informal economy
where the platform has become dominant, and Part IV examines how the platform has
contributed to geographic mobility and labour migration, as well as the consequences
for workers.
Platform Labour and Global Logistics: A Research Companion presents a unique
contribution to the political economy literature through highlighting the significance
of the impact of the platform and logistics on the working class and potential challenges
from labour across the world. This book is intended for academics, researchers and
students studying technological innovation, global supply chains, labour restructuring
and worker resistance.
Immanuel Ness is Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of the City
University of New York, NY, USA and Visiting Professor of Sociology, University of
Johannesburg, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa.
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PLATFORM LABOUR
AND GLOBAL LOGISTICS
A Research Companion
Edited by Immanuel Ness
Designed cover image: elenabs/Getty Images
First published 2023
by Routledge
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© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Immanuel Ness; individual chapters,
the contributors
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ness, Immanuel, editor.
Title: Platform labour and global logistics : a research companion / edited
by Immanuel Ness.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. |
Series: Routledge research companions in business and economics |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022034408 (print) | LCCN 2022034409 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032398709 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032398716 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003351764 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Labor market. | Gig economy. | Temporary employment. |
Business logistics.
Classification: LCC HD5706 .P63 2023 (print) | LCC HD5706 (ebook) |
DDC 331.12—dc23/eng/20220721
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022034408
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022034409
ISBN: 978-1-032-39870-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-39871-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-35176-4 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003351764
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements viii
Editor ix
Contributors x
1 An Introduction to Platform Labour and Global Logistics 1
Immanuel Ness
PART I
Global Logistics and Platform Labour 13
2 The E-Logistics Revolution: Amazon, Labor, and the
Future of Logistics Work 15
Jake Alimahomed-Wilson
3 Lords of the Platform: Rentier Capitalism and the
Platform Economy 28
Jathan Sadowski
4 Digitalization, Automation and the Future of Globalization 39
Samuel T. King
5 Global Supply Chains in the Gig Economy 53
Dieter Bögenhold and Farah Naz
vi Contents
PART II
Labour Restructuring and Platform Work 67
6 Thriving Small-Scale Entrepreneurs or Precarious
Own-Account Workers?: Concepts and Politics
of Informal Work Since the 1970s 69
Sibylle Marti
7 A Trade Between Flexibility and Security: Examining the
Evolution of Non-Standard Work Arrangements and Ways
to Rebalance the Position of Platform Workers in the Labor
Exchange 89
Aleksandra Webb
8 Adjunct and Precarious Teaching Labor in Higher Education 108
Eva-Maria Swidler
9 New Forms of Agency or Atomization?: Platform
Workers’ Power Resources and Fragmentation 132
Heiner Heiland
PART III
Global Case Studies of Platform and Informal Labour 151
10 Transportation Workers’ Mobilization Against the Gig
Economy: Korea 153
Aelim Yun
11 ‘Cheap, Fast and Flexible’: Processes of Informalization
in Asian Garment Manufacturing 167
Anna Salmivaara
12 Piece Wages in US and Canadian Agriculture as Political
Technologies of Labour Control: Implications for the
Wider Platform Economy 182
Emily Reid-Musson and Hannah Johnston
13 Delivering (In)justice: Contestations Within India’s Digital
Food Delivery Platforms 195
Shyam Krishna
Contents vii
14 India’s Platform Economy Experience: A Site for the
Commodification–Decommodification Dynamic 212
Premilla D’Cruz and Ernesto Noronha
15 Entrepreneurship, Informality and the Platform Economy:
The Resignification of Precariousness in Brazil 230
Jacob Carlos Lima
PART IV
Migration and Platform Work 243
16 Contactless Delivery: Migrant Experiences in the Platform
Economy 245
Tyler Riordan, Richard Robinson and Gerhard Hoffstaedter
17 With This Ring, With This Striving: Love, Marriage,
and Labor in the Platform Economy in Southeast Asia 263
Teresita Cruz del Rosario and Linda A. Lumayag
18 Fragmented Labour, Punctuated Temporalities:
Spatiotemporal Precarisation Among Student-Migrant Workers 274
Olivia Maury
Index 290
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I thank the six peer reviewers for their scholarly expertise and detailed and incisive
comments on the chapters of this collection. They provided valuable advice and
suggestions to each of the contributors and the editor.
I am immensely grateful to the editors at Routledge, especially Kristina Abbotts
and Christiana Mandizha, who have been instrumental in the project development
and bringing Platform Labour and Global Logistics: A Research Companion to fruition.
I also thank Honghui Park for her support and advice in developing this project.
EDITOR
Immanuel Ness is professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City
University of New York, NY, USA.
