Struggles over the power and meaning of digital labour platforms: A comparison of the Vienna, Berlin, New York and Los Angeles taxi markets

This chapter draws on a reconceptualized power resource perspective to examine differences in the responses, struggles and enacted resistance of transport workers in four cities following the introduction of app-based passenger transportation services. In comparing the power positions of key actors in Vienna, Berlin, New York, and Los Angeles, this chapter ventures to explain driving features that account for actors' heterogeneous responses to the introduction of on-demand app-based transit services. Specifically, variations are viewed as contingent on workers' material and symbolic power positions in multi-scalar (local, national and transnational) political, economic and industrial relations spheres. In comparing these four cases, we find that associational and institutional power are most effective as a means of resistance when they align with high levels of symbolic power (i.e. legitimate forms of power) on the side of labour. Conversely, low levels of symbolic power can lead to a weakening of labour even when there is high levels of associational power.