Thus we see the rise of all #DisciplinaryTechnology, especially #bossware, which started off monitoring forced prison labor, then blue-collar workers, then pink collar workers (like the largely female, largely Black work-from-home customer service reps who work for Arise):

pluralistic.net/2021/01/22/pap…

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The pandemic saw the spread of bossware to affluent, "high-skilled" white-collar workers, from doctors to teachers to IT workers, as the idea of being monitored continuously in your own home, from camera to keystrokes, was normalized by the lockdown:

pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb…

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And yet, what matters about bossware isn't what it does - a keylogger that you control is just called "undo" - but who it does it to. When gig workers "seize the means of reproduction" and hack the apps that boss them around, they can turn the tables. That's what's happening in #Indonesia, where #TuyulApps are produced by worker co-ops and small software vendors to give drivers direct control over their working conditions:

pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuy…

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This is *true* #disruption, where tech isn't just used for #RegulatoryArbitrage (as when gig-work apps are used to avoid #labor laws by #misclassifying workers as #contractors):

pluralistic.net/2022/02/21/con…

That's what makes Rida Qadri's research so exciting: the premise that if workers can hack their employers back, bossware can become #laborware:

wired.com/story/disruption-mob…

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‘Disruption’ Is a Two-Way Street

There's a wave of innovation that we're failing to recognize—and it's being led by users and networks, not tech companies.

^{Rida Qadri (WIRED)}

In the USA, companies like Para are creating apps that sit on top of the gig work dispatch apps, monitoring all the offers from all the different apps and auto-declining offers that are too low, forcing the algorithm to bid up the labor share of the companies' income:

eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/tech…

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Tech Rights Are Workers' Rights: DoorDash Edition

DoorDash workers are embroiled in a bitter labor dispute with the company: at issue, the tips that “Dashers” depend on to make the difference between a living wage and the poorhouse.

^{Electronic Frontier Foundation}

Writing for IT for Change's *outstanding* inaugural "State of Big Tech" issue, the Vidhi Centre For Legal Policy's Jai Vipra presents "Changing Dynamics of Labor and Capital," a deep, essential look at the way that tech affects labor struggles around the world:

projects.itforchange.net/state…

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Changing Dynamics of Labor and Capital

Labor's ability to negotiate with capital has reduced because of work mediated by Big Tech. Workers' agenda must include algorithm regulation, data and financial rights of workers.

^{State of Big Tech}

Vipra's report is fascinating not just for the eye-watering new ways that capital uses tech to inflict pain on labor, but for the ingenious, effective mechanisms that workers use tech to answer power with #CountervailingPower.

For example, workers delivering for the Swiggy app were unable to get the company to respond to the ways that the app was driving them into unsustainable and dangerous working schedules.

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So they staged a "log-out strike" and collectively withheld their labor from the app, triggering a crisis that management couldn't ignore.

Likewise, drivers for Ola began mass-cancelling rides to protest the company's policy of not showing drivers their destinations and pay until they accepted a job - the resulting chaos forced the company to let drivers see all the details of an offer of work before accepting it.

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These direct actions are driven in part by the platforms' relentless pursuit of a reduced wage-bill, which sees them laying off swathes of back-office workers who once stepped in to mediate between gig workers and their algorithmic managers. When you can't get anyone on the phone or a livechat to complain that your app wants you to drive off a pier and into the deep blue sea, collective digital power swings into action.

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The Shitty Tech Adoption Curve means that we find the tactics of gig drivers working their way up the privilege gradient to white-collar workers, and sure enough, in Mar 2021, Goldman Sachs bankers coordinated a threat of mass resignation over the bossware monitoring them in their homes 24/7, complaining of 105 hour (!!) work-weeks:

thejakartapost.com/life/2021/0…

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Goldman Sachs overwork accusation hits nerve as pandemic blurs work-life line

The erosion between office and home boundaries during the pandemic means many white-collar workers can relate on some level to the complaints, even if the plight of elite young bankers seeking riches does not inspire sympathy.

^{The Jakarta Post}

But #AdHocCoordination has its limits. Spinning up a new organizing group to counter each new bossware #fuckery exacts a terrible price from already overstretched, precarious workers. That's where #unions come in. On the face of it, unionizing gig workers presents an insurmountable challenge: they are atomized, geographically dispersed and lack even a break room.

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But tech taketh away and it giveth back. When Uber Eats bait-and-switched drivers into signing up in 2016 and then slashed their wages, organizers connected with other workers by placing small food orders with Uber Eats and then had #OrganizingConversations with the drivers who delivered the orders:

ft.com/content/88fdc58e-754f-1…

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When your boss is an algorithm

In the gig economy, companies such as Uber and Deliveroo manage workers via their phones. But is this liberating or exploitative?

^{Sarah O'Connor (Financial Times)}