Reflections on conversations regarding collective action in platform work
By Oğuz Alyanak, cultural anthropologist and a postdoctoral researcher at the Fairwork project, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford.
In recent years, a growing number of platform workers have been occupying the streets, shutting down warehouses, and blocking the motorways to demand better pay, greater job security, and safer working conditions.
In 2021, as a newly minted postdoctoral researcher at the Fairwork project, I chronicled activism by one such group of workers, the Gorillas couriers (later known as the Gorillas Workers Collective). What I’ve witnessed following them was truly extraordinary, given the hostile legal and institutional environment in Germany against migrant workers. There was no union to back them up. At times, I even wondered whether most unions knew that platform work was a thing in Germany, certainly not an issue to pay enough attention back then. Yet, the Gorillas workers movement gained traction, bringing them international recognition. Soon after, it became an inspiration for platform couriers in Germany and elsewhere.
On 10 September 2025, I was asked to chair one of the four breakout rooms at the Reshaping Work Conference. The session, titled “Collective action in platform work,” provided key insights to some of these obstacles. The room included three presentations by Dr Mirren Guiterrez, Dr Entela Kaleshi, and Martijn Muller.
In what follows, I provide a recap of their presentations and highlight how their research contributes to the ongoing conversation on worker activism in platform work.
The first paper, by Miren Gutierrez (presenter), Adriano Calvo, and Antonia Moreo Cano, examined how undocumented Latin American migrant women in Spain, who seek jobs primarily through domestic work platforms, organise. Parallel to my previous research in Germany, the paper underscored visa status/right to work, gendered and racialised inequalities, and lack of knowledge of legal frameworks as key issues that perpetuate precarity in domestic work. The precarity is further accentuated in the digital economy where workers are employed sans institutional and legal support, including employment status or contracts. As the authors pointed out, undocumented migrant women remain largely invisible and excluded in policy discussion on platform work. It is therefore imperative for member states of the EU to promote policies that recognise their presence and labour. However, the authors also reminded us that their research participants, the very marginalised women workers in Spain, do not to simply sit and wait for policy makers to act upon such a premise. Rather, they take matters to hand by organising amongst themselves using informal channels. In the absence of institutional protections, they use social media channels and messaging apps, such as WhatsApp, to create groups that gave them a support network. Similar to the Helpling workers I interviewed during my research in Berlin, rather than letting algorithms shape their future, they use grassroot networks to share information, offer mutual aid, and coordinate collective action.
The second paper, by Entela Kaleshi (presenter), and Zyhra Gripshi, focused on the struggles that platform workers in Albania face. In Albania, flexibility continues to be a selling point especially for women who have limited access to the job market due to familial responsibilities or cultural norms. However, the authors argued that beyond the veneer of flexibility, which digital labour platforms promote, lies rampant job insecurity. Rather than address women’s empowerment via employment, platform work perpetuates systematic and gendered gaps in worker protection and socioeconomic vulnerability. Furthermore, as it is mainly women who seek jobs in domestic work platforms, platform work in Albania further reinforces the unpaid/domestic vs. paid work binary, where female domestic platform workers are expected to do unpaid work. Albania has formal labour laws and occupational safety standards; the authors reminded us. However, regulations are lacking in the digital economy. In response, Kaleshi and Gripshi proposed greater regulation of platform work in Albania, which would empower female platform workers by giving them a louder voice in shaping the future of the country’s digital economy.
The final paper, by Martijn Müller, brought us to the Netherlands. Much of the platform work debate, especially in Western Europe, has been dominated by a single question: should workers obtain employment status, or should they not? Müller, a former food and grocery courier and Deliveroo worker representative, argued that lived realities are much more complex. High level/policy discussion on employment status do not help workers resolve practical queries pertaining to pay or working conditions. Institutional narratives, including those of unions, also fail to fully represent worker voice. In response, Müller invited us to become better listeners of workers’ voice. In his case, workers in Nijmegen meet regularly to collectively devise strategies and address their demands to management, leading to increased pay and efficiency for the couriers. Hence, rather than remain stuck on policy discussions regarding employment status, Müller asked us to remain attentive to grassroot struggle leading to changes in company policies.
Last year, the EU passed the European Directive on Platform work, with the intention to improve working conditions for workers employed by digital labour platforms. The Directive is a refreshing development especially with regards to collective action, as it mandates platforms to encourage collective worker voice by encouraging greater transparency in communication, and by establishing worker-led channels of communication and organising. Regardless, collective action in platform work continues to face substantial obstacles. That is what all scholars agreed on in this year’s Reshaping Work conference.