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Learning to Strike in the Gig Economy: Mobilization Efforts by Food Delivery Workers in Hyderabad, India

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  • Mohammad Sajjad Hussain

Abstract

This article discusses protest efforts undertaken by platform-based food delivery workers during the first wave of the pandemic. Following the lockdown, food delivery platforms were categorized as ‘essential’ to ensure that their operations continued. Several changes were made during this time to hiring practices, platforms diversified into providing grocery services and incorporating safety protocols to enhance customer ‘confidence’ in their services. The article starts by showing how the pandemic helped to strengthen the platform’s position in the market on the backs of delivery partners’ who were reliant on platform work as a means of livelihood. Though publicly glorified as ‘superheroes’, their remunerations were slashed during the pandemic, triggering a series of strikes. Since June 2020, workers across several cities have resorted to protest the worsening conditions of work. It gives an ethnographic description of two strikes that took place in June and Sept 2020 in Hyderabad. It then compares these two strikes to discuss workers’ motivation or the lack of it to strike, the strike tactics used by them, as well as the responses of platform companies to the strike. I then focus on the structural and contingent factors which rendered worker’s bargaining power weaker, despite them being providers of ‘essential services’.

Suggested Citation

  • Mohammad Sajjad Hussain, 2023. "Learning to Strike in the Gig Economy: Mobilization Efforts by Food Delivery Workers in Hyderabad, India," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 18(3), pages 431-456, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:soudev:v:18:y:2023:i:3:p:431-456
    DOI: 10.1177/09731741231182877
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Bessa, Ioulia, & Joyce, Simon, & Neumann, Denis, & Stuart, Mark, & Trappmann, Vera, & Umney, Charles,, 2022. "A global analysis of worker protest in digital labour platforms," ILO Working Papers 995192093002676, International Labour Organization.
    2. Vincent Pasquier & Alex J Wood, 2018. "The power of social media as a labour campaigning tool: lessons from OUR Walmart and the Fight for 15," Post-Print hal-01903758, HAL.
    3. Christina Purcell & Paul Brook, 2022. "At Least I’m My Own Boss! Explaining Consent, Coercion and Resistance in Platform Work," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 36(3), pages 391-406, June.
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