IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v32y2018i3p475-492.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Paying for Free Delivery: Dependent Self-Employment as a Measure of Precarity in Parcel Delivery

Author

Listed:
  • Sian Moore

    (University of Greenwich, UK)

  • Kirsty Newsome

    (University of Sheffield, UK)

Abstract

This article explores supply chain pressures in parcel delivery and how the drive to contain costs to ‘preserve value in motion’, including the costs of failed delivery, underpins contractual differentiation. It focuses on owner-drivers and home couriers paid by delivery. It considers precarity through the lens of the labour process, while locating it within the supply chain, political economy and ‘instituted economic process’ that define it. Focus on the labour process shows how ‘self-employment’ is used to remove so-called ‘unproductive’ time from the remit of paid labour. Using Smith’s concept of double indeterminacy the article captures the dynamic relationship between those on standard and non-standard contracts and interdependency of effort power and mobility power. It exposes the apparent mobility and autonomy of dependent self-employed drivers while suggesting that their presence, alongside the increased use of technology, reconfigures the work-effort bargain across contractual status.

Suggested Citation

  • Sian Moore & Kirsty Newsome, 2018. "Paying for Free Delivery: Dependent Self-Employment as a Measure of Precarity in Parcel Delivery," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 32(3), pages 475-492, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:32:y:2018:i:3:p:475-492
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017018755664
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017018755664
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017018755664?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Prosser, 2016. "Dualization or liberalization? Investigating precarious work in eight European countries," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 30(6), pages 949-965, December.
    2. Chris Smith, 2006. "The double indeterminacy of labour power," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 20(2), pages 389-402, June.
    3. Bruno Palier & Kathleen Thelen, 2010. "Institutionalizing Dualism: Complementarities and Change in France and Germany," Politics & Society, , vol. 38(1), pages 119-148, March.
    4. Markus Hesse & Jean‐Paul Rodrigue, 2006. "Global Production Networks and the Role of Logistics and Transportation," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 499-509, December.
    5. Colin Crouch, 2015. "Labour Market Governance and the Creation of Outsiders," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 53(1), pages 27-48, March.
    6. Neil M. Coe, 2014. "Missing links: Logistics, governance and upgrading in a shifting global economy," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 224-256, February.
    7. Mark Harvey & Stephen Quilley & Huw Beyon, 2002. "Exploring the Tomato," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2916.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gianluca Busilacchi & Giovanni Gallo & Matteo Luppi, 2022. "I would like to but I cannot. The determinants of involuntary part-time employment: Evidence from Italy," Center for the Analysis of Public Policies (CAPP) 0177, Universita di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Dipartimento di Economia "Marco Biagi".
    2. Paulo Marques & Dora Fonseca, 2022. "Understanding the positions taken by moderate union confederations and centre-left parties during labour market reforms in Portugal and Spain: Why the configuration of left parties and trade union con," European Journal of Industrial Relations, , vol. 28(1), pages 65-84, March.
    3. Rocio Bonet & Marta Elvira & Stefano Visintin, 2024. "Hiring Temps but Losing Perms? Temporary Worker Inflows and Voluntary Turnover of Permanent Employees," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 38(1), pages 83-102, February.
    4. Hyojin Seo, 2021. "‘Dual’ labour market? Patterns of segmentation in European labour markets and the varieties of precariousness," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 27(4), pages 485-503, November.
    5. Luis Cárdenas & Paloma Villanueva, 2021. "Flexibilization at the Core to Reduce Labour Market Dualism: Evidence from the Spanish Case," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 59(1), pages 214-235, March.
    6. Guglielmo Meardi & Melanie Simms & Duncan Adam, 2021. "Trade unions and precariat in Europe: Representative claims," European Journal of Industrial Relations, , vol. 27(1), pages 41-58, March.
    7. Sean O'Brady, 2021. "Fighting precarious work with institutional power: Union inclusion and its limits across spheres of action," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 59(4), pages 1084-1107, December.
    8. Bjarke Refslund & Jens Arnholtz, 2022. "Power resource theory revisited: The perils and promises for understanding contemporary labour politics," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 43(4), pages 1958-1979, November.
    9. Leone Leonida & Marianna Marra & Sergio Scicchitano & Antonio Giangreco & Marco Biagetti, 2020. "Estimating the Wage Premium to Supervision for Middle Managers in Different Contexts: Evidence from Germany and the UK," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(6), pages 1004-1026, December.
    10. Sharon C. Bolton, 2009. "Getting to the heart of the emotional labour process: a reply to Brook," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 23(3), pages 549-560, September.
    11. Sally Gee & Andrew McMeekin, 2011. "Eco-Innovation Systems and Problem Sequences: The Contrasting Cases of US and Brazilian Biofuels," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 301-315.
    12. Joseph Choonara, 2020. "The Precarious Concept of Precarity," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(3), pages 427-446, September.
    13. Alex Veen & Tom Barratt & Caleb Goods, 2020. "Platform-Capital’s ‘App-etite’ for Control: A Labour Process Analysis of Food-Delivery Work in Australia," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(3), pages 388-406, June.
    14. Chad M. Baum, 2013. "Mass-Produced Food: the Rise and Fall of the Promise of Health and Safety," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2013-03, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    15. Michaël Zemmour, 2015. "Economie politique du financement progressif de la protection sociale," Working Papers hal-01205217, HAL.
    16. Hongyu Wang & Xiaolei Wang & Apurbo Sarkar & Lu Qian, 2021. "Evaluating the Impacts of Smallholder Farmer’s Participation in Modern Agricultural Value Chain Tactics for Facilitating Poverty Alleviation—A Case Study of Kiwifruit Industry in Shaanxi, China," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-19, May.
    17. Stefano Sacchi & Federico Pancaldi & Claudia Arisi, 2011. "The Economic Crisis as a Trigger of Convergence? Short-time work in Italy, Germany and Austria," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 199, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    18. Eichhorst, Werner & Marx, Paul & Wehner, Caroline, 2017. "Labor market reforms in Europe: towards more flexicure labor markets?," Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 51(1), pages 1-3.
    19. Busemeyer, Marius R., 2011. "Varieties of cross-class coalitions in the politics of dualization: Insights from the case of vocational training in Germany," MPIfG Discussion Paper 11/13, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    20. Eichhorst, Werner & Tobsch, Verena, 2015. "Not so standard anymore? : employment duality in Germany (Vom Normalarbeitsverhältnis zu atypischen Verträgen? : die Dualisierung des deutschen Arbeitsmarktes)," Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 48(2), pages 81-95.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:32:y:2018:i:3:p:475-492. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.