'I'm my own boss…': Active intermediation and 'entrepreneurial' worker agency in the Australian gig-economy. (November 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Barratt, Tom; Goods, Caleb; Veen, Alex
• Is Part Of: Environment and planning. Volume 52:Number 8(2020)
• Page Start: 1643
• Page End: 1661
• Publication Date: 2020-11
• Subjects: Labour agency -- labour market intermediation -- gig-economy -- migrant workers; City planning -- Periodicals; Regional planning -- Periodicals; City planning; Regional planning; Periodicals; 333.7
• DOI: 10.1177/0308518X20914346
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0308-518X

Abstract

Platform firm in the gig-economy are disrupting work as a social practice, production systems and recasting capital-labour relations. This qualitative study examines worker agency in the Australian food-delivery sector; a segment where platforms actively intermediate both product and labour markets. Within this sector, worker agency poses a potential challenge to platform-organisations; however this study reveals how these platforms' work organisation and market regulation constrain agency potential. Shaped by the work's spatio-temporal features, organisational fixes and institutional context, it is shown how food-delivery workers, transiently attached to the labour market, predominantly engage in 'entrepreneurial agency' – a low-level agency expression aimed at materially improving individual conditions and aligning with, rather than challenging, platforms' business models.