Digital Labour Platforms
We were once told that platforms were going to transform the world of work forever. But as critical researchers pointed out, there were always profound continuities between platform capitalism and the more analogue variety. Platforms used technology to deregulate labour, intensify control, and cut wages — not to innovate.
By using the method of workers’ inquiry, I began to understand the nature of this emerging sector from the inside out. Instead of finding atomised workers, I found a vibrant platform workers movement, full of a generation of organisers who were willing to develop new strategies in order to win.
Books
Cant C (2019) Riding for Deliveroo: Resistance in the New Economy. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Journal articles and book chapters
Alyanak, O., Cant, C., Ayala, T. L., Badger, A. and Graham, M. (2023). ‘Platform work, exploitation, and migrant worker resistance: Evidence from Berlin and London’. The Economic and Labour Relations Review. 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1017/elr.2023.34.
Cant C (2020) The warehouse without walls: a workers’ inquiry at Deliveroo. Ephemera 20(4): 131–161.
Cant C and Mogno C (2020) Platform Workers of the World, Unite! The Emergence of the Transnational Federation of Couriers. South Atlantic Quarterly 119(1): 401–411. DOI: 10.1215/00382876-8177971.
Cant C and Woodcock J (2021) The Cycle of Struggle: Food platform strikes in the UK 2016-18. In: Dolber B, Rodino-Colocino M, Kumanyika C, et al. (eds) The Gig Economy: Workers and Media in the Age of Convergence. London : New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 256–268.
Woodcock J and Cant C (2022) Platform Worker Organising at Deliveroo in the UK: From Wildcat Strikes to Building Power. Journal of Labor and Society 25(2): 220–236. DOI: 10.1163/24714607-bja10050.
Woodcock J and Cant C (2023) Platforms, Resistance, Organising. In: Smith P, Monea A, and Santiago M (eds) Amazon: At the Intersection of Culture and Capital. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 149–163.
Policy briefings and Reports
Howson K, Cant C, Bertolini A, et al. (2021) Protecting workers in the UK platform economy. Oxford: Fairwork. Available at: https://fair.work/en/fw/publications/13335/ (accessed 21 November 2022).
Cole M, Bertolini A, Ustek‐Spilda F, et al. (2022) Fairwork UK Ratings 2022: Collective Worker Power. Oxford: Fairwork. Available at: https://fair.work/en/fw/publications/fairwork-uk-ratings-2022-collective-worker-power/ (accessed 14 November 2023).
Popular Writing
Cant C (2018) The wave of worker resistance in European food platforms 2016-17. Available at: https://notesfrombelow.org/article/european-food-platform-strike-wave
Cant C (2020) The Frontline of the Struggle Against Platform Capitalism Lies in São Paulo. Available at: https://novaramedia.com/2020/10/03/the-frontline-of-the-struggle-against-platform-capitalism-lies-in-sao-paulo/
Cant C (2021) Sheffield Food Couriers Are Waging the Longest Strike in the History of the Gig Economy. Available at: https://novaramedia.com/2021/12/16/sheffield-delivery-workers-strike/
Cant C (2023) Be warned: Deliveroo’s victory over its riders shows just how vulnerable British workers are. The Guardian, 23 November. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/23/deliveroo-victory-riders-british-workers-gig-economy-europe (accessed 23 November 2023).
