Thirteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

This paper argues that attempts of collective labor organizing between drivers who work under digital ride-hailing platforms such as Uber become more challenging compared to earlier times. My argumentation is profoundly tied up with the extension of the capitalist appropriation (explored in the context of “social factory”) and labor alienation that I operationalize through three dimensions (powerlessness, normlessness, and isolation). Increasing powerlessness and normlessness among Uber drivers contribute to labor organizing aimed at bunking of the exploitative scheme. For instance, Uber drivers realized that the only way to boost their earnings was by re-appropriating the technology, using the Uber app against Uber illegally. Normlessness, as an integral aspect of alienation, in this case helped collective labor organization, potentially in function of class composition, and formation of “class for itself”. However, isolation, also a central aspect in defining alienation, prevented workers’ organization from evolving into a more sustainable and structured type of cooperation. Rather, several attempts of collective organizing among Uber drivers that I explored illuminated only a lower degree of convergence and inability of outgrowing from autonomous and loosely defined into a more nuanced, class-based type of struggle, potentially a catalyst of counter culture and qualitative social change. This way, I reaffirm decidedly political character of alienation.