Paying for Free Delivery: Dependent Self-Employment as a Measure of Precarity in Parcel Delivery. (June 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Moore, Sian; Newsome, Kirsty
• Other Names: Alberti Gabriella guest-editor.; Bessa Ioulia guest-editor.; Hardy Kate guest-editor.; Trappmann Vera guest-editor.; Umney Charles guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Work, employment & society. Volume 32:Number 3(2018)
• Page Start: 475
• Page End: 492
• Publication Date: 2018-06
• Subjects: dualisation -- logistics -- precarity -- self-employment -- supply chains; Industrial sociology -- Periodicals; Work -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Industrial relations -- Periodicals; 306.36
• DOI: 10.1177/0950017018755664
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0950-0170

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.