Work mediated by platform: autonomy or precariousness?

Abstract

Instituto Trabalho Digno is pleased to launch today the edition of Laborare, which brings together articles about work for companies that operate using digital platforms. A central theme. After all, as it was possible to scale during the pandemic, it is difficult to live today without resorting to these services.

The big companies that offer them didn't invent them, obviously. But they inaugurated, in a way, an even more radical way of exploiting the workforce, to the point of legitimizing the use of the neologism uberization of work as a synonym for precariousness. Exploitation outside constitutional parameters takes place under the guise of entrepreneurship, with a discourse that is so seductive that many workers in these activities end up, sincerely, adhering to the false idea that their work is autonomous.

The articles gathered here reveal the not-so-hidden face of this exploitation: long hours, low wages, illness, poor working conditions and, consequently, poor living conditions. They call for critical thinking on the need to recognize labor rights. The minimum of social protection for this important part of the working class.

To speak of uberized work is to deal with the current form of exploitation of work by capital, in this perverse period of history. It is symbolic that such a mode of exploitation is carried out by large companies and that it has revolutionized the way in which such services are offered. Even more symbolic is the use of technology to enhance the extraction of surplus value, instead of making life better for those who depend on work to survive.

That there is so much discussion about something simple: the need to recognize the employment relationship and, therefore, the full labor and social security rights of drivers and delivery people, is a symptom of alienation. And, to a certain extent, the insistence on the use of law to maintain increasingly acute forms of oppression. But the Law is also an instrument to tension and change conditions of existence that promote suffering, as happens with uberized work. The articles gathered here demonstrate this potency.

In this issue of Laborare, we present the Dossier “Work on digital platforms in Brazil”, under the special coordination of Ricardo Festi, Bruna de Carvalho, Cícero Muniz and Raphael Lapa, all researchers linked to the University of Brasília.

We open this issue with two articles on safety and health at work. The first, signed by the trio of labor inspectors Ana Luiza Horcades, Larissa Abreu and Felipe Wittich, deals with the formal and technical issues required of employers in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. In a technical and legal analysis, they defend the mandatory inclusion of preventive measures related to the new coronavirus in the health and safety programs at work developed in organizations, especially in the Risk Management Program (PGR) and in the Medical and Health Control Program Occupational (PCMSO).

The second, which promotes an ergonomic analysis of facade painting using an individual electric rocker, is authored by Matheus Caetano, Alessandra Tessaro, Liliane Gomes, Flávia de Mattos, Jorge Nunes and Jorge Bandeira. From the demonstration of the points that require attention and different measures of the equipment in terms of Ergonomics, they list proposals for improvements and reduction of risk to the construction worker.

In the text that opens the dossier, Ricardo Festi interviews the leader Abel Santos, who discusses the struggle of app delivery people in the Federal District, in different opportunities and moments, and from the speech that defends the importance of mobilization and collective action for the effective defense of rights and better working conditions for the category.

Then, the research developed by Helena Martins, Jonas Valente, Marina Polo, Mirele Rodrigues and Raissa Pacheco points out that the mediation of the platforms makes it possible to deepen the subsumption of intellectual work and reduces the autonomy of the worker even under a discourse of independence of these in the execution of tasks.

Attentive to the discussion between the categorization of workers as self-employed or employed, Diogo Torres, João Magalhães, Silvia Gomes and Vanessa de Souza focus on the examination of working conditions on the Rappi digital platform. They analyze the majority profile of couriers in terms of weekly hours worked, perceived remuneration, transfer of activity risks, application of blocks or punishments and perception of platform control and characterization as an employee.

From the perspective of piecework, Laura Gontijo studies work on digital platforms. The author emphasizes the importance of the form of remuneration to understand the willingness of workers to work long hours and endure precarious working conditions.

The precariousness of work in the digital age is also the object of reflection by Kethury dos Santos, who denounces the working conditions of couriers by application in the Federal District. The research highlights the male, young and peripheral predominance in precarious occupations, and indicates the persistence of social and racial inequalities.

When carrying out a “delivery destined for the Legislative Power”, Aline Soares observes how the application delivery category and the respective working conditions were addressed during the Covid-19 pandemic, in normative terms. She understands that collective organization plays an important role in pressuring public authorities for basic rights and guarantees.

Based on an approach related to the weaknesses of the uberization of work and the subordination of the new neoliberal subject, Thayuany Rodrigues presents results of empirical research on the experience of app delivery people, which reveals a picture composed of discrimination, insecurity, and health risks.

The study by Pedro Borges identifies the relevance of collective spaces for resting and waiting for delivery people for applications (points) for the mobilization and construction of class consciousness.

Finally, in order to remove unfounded discourses about self-management at work on digital platforms, Sara de Araujo observes that technology can be used as a tool to maintain labor control, insofar as it allows productivity control, hides the image employer, disconnect the individual from the work process and invest in the opacity of relevant data on activities carried out.

More than knowing, it is necessary to think critically about the theme and face it in the practice of social, academic, and legal activity, creating discourses that honor the entire history of construction of social rights. This is the invitation that the newest edition of Laborare makes us.

Good reading!