For migrant workers who do not have access to other means of income, the platform economy offers a viable yet exploitative alternative to the conventional labour market. Migrant workers are used as a source of cheap labour by platforms – and yet, they are not disempowered. They are at the heart of a growing platform worker movement. Across different international contexts, migrants have played a key role in leading strikes and other forms of collective action. This article traces the struggles of migrant platform workers in Berlin and London to explore how working conditions, work experiences, and strategies for collective action are shaped at the intersection of multiple precarities along lines of employment and migration status. Combining data collected through research by the Fairwork project with participant observation and ethnography, the article argues that migrant workers are more than an exploitable resource: they are harbingers of change.

Protests differ and so do protest outcomes. This is also the case in food delivery gig work, which is characterised by frequent labour unrest. Various cross-country analyses have pointed to the importance of the national context for the strategies and outcomes of courier protests. However, as the article shows, the protests already differ at the level of different cities. To analyse this, the study argues that the heterogeneity of protests in platform-mediated courier work is due to the spatially distinct logic of the respective cities. The research is based on two case studies of food delivery platforms in Germany, which were investigated with a mixed methods research design consisting of interviews, multi-sited ethnography and a survey. The findings show that the intrinsic logic of the two centres of courier protests studied (Cologne and Berlin) played a central role in the composition of the protesting groups, their strategies and subsequently the outcomes. However, it turns out that intrinsic logics are not homogeneous and in fact may exist in various forms, which can be complementary or in conflict with each other and are supported and realised by different social groups. In addition, the size of the cities also proves to be decisive for the dynamics of the protests.

Achieving adequate incomes to sustain people in their retirement years is a challenge. This paper addresses poverty among injured workers of retirement age when they have been receiving workers’ compensation benefits. Guided by governmental management theory, we address procedures that have operated without media or scholarly attention, in order to highlight details in workers’ compensation retirement pension policy that contribute to injured worker poverty in older age in Ontario, Canada. We used a mixed methods approach, applying critical discourse analysis to explain (a) policies related to retirement income; (b) rationales that supported a legislative change that reduced retirement pensions; and (c) workers’ experiences of living with a workers’ compensation pension. Although workers’ compensation board retirement income policy was intended to make up for loss of contributions to the Canadian federal pension fund, the Ontario injured workers’ retirement pension now pays less than half of the amount workers would have received in the federal pension,a trend that is observable across Canadian provincial workers’ compensation boards. Legislative debates about the 1998 bill that halved the Ontario injured workers’ retirement pension centred on neoliberal logic of fiscal responsibility. Injured workers and key informants in this study expressed trepidation about injured workers’ financial futures.

In recent migration research temporality has become a prominent figure. Focussing on temporality allows to shed light on some aspects of labour mobility that enlighten our understanding of work-related conflicts. Especially with view to labour market inclusion, migrants often experience the (assumed) temporal limitation and unpredictability of migration projects, work and residence permits, as well as employment relationships. Correspondingly, labour policies, sector-specific company structures and management techniques also have a temporal dimension (time limits, seasonality, outsourcing schemes), which have effects on conflicts in and around work. Furthermore, one has to situate labour and labour migration within its context of social reproduction in order to better understand, how paid wage labour is embedded in social activities and networks such as households, families and communities, and shaped by the social, developmental and migratory policies that condition workers’ labour market inclusion. This conceptual paper argues that for migrants in particular, the (assumed) temporal limitation and unpredictability of migration projects, work/residence permits, and employment relationships is of great importance when it comes to analysing conflict-ridden negotiations over labour relations and working conditions.

This paper presents the results of research, which highlights the situation during the pandemic in sectors characterised by low wages and a high turnover of workers. The empirical basis is formed by company case studies in the meat industry, postal services, and mask production in Germany and Austria. This paper discusses the significance of different locations (at and beyond the workplace) and forms (‘exit’ and ‘voice’) of labour unrest in sectors of the economy that are characterised by a predominance of the use of migrant labour. It questions how conflicts over migrant labour have been articulated and possibly changed in the pandemic, and what factors may have contributed not only to an upsurge but also to the containment, regulation, and repression, of labour unrest.

The 2022–2023 review of the Reserve Bank of Australia, published in March 2023, was a missed opportunity to reconsider the currently dominant framework for monetary policy. This framework, based on strong central bank independence and reliance on adjustments to central bank interest rates to achieve a 2–3% inflation target, has performed poorly at a global level and is no longer sustainable. A new framework, accepting a higher average rate of inflation and taking explicit account of the objectives of full employment and economic prosperity, is needed.

This article analyses the impact of the Great Recession and radical labour market deregulation on employer associations’ (EAs) membership levels and composition in Southern Europe. It also reviews the literature and advances it in four relevant aspects. First, it verifies a general decrease in membership of EAs in Southern Europe, almost to the point of collapse in Greece. Secondly, it identifies the greater importance of large companies (more than Fordist economic sectors) in the composition of this membership. Thirdly, it confirms that sectoral bargaining (as a major determinant) and union representation (an element weakened by reforms) are strong company-level incentives for membership in EAs. Finally, it re-examines the reasons put forward in the scholarly literature to explain why EAs in Southern Europe have not been in favour of these significant institutional changes.

This article is part of an internationally coordinated themed collection on ‘labour conflict, forms of organisation, and class’ exploring important questions. How can we explain the interplay of capital, the state, and the international order, in defining the persistence of labour conflict in changing historical and political-economic contexts? How have the economic, social, and technological transformations precipitated by the recent pandemic shaped the expression of work-related conflict? As part of a response to these main questions, the author and contributors of this collection conceptualise labour conflict and collective action in broader class analysis and examine the combined effect of state policies, migration, and digital innovation on contemporary labour politics. This article, drawing on insights from Marxist-oriented interdisciplinary approaches and feminist theories, seeks to suggest approaches to future studies on class, labour conflict, and workers’ organisation.

In this paper, we present empirical research on what we call ‘digital worker feedback infrastructures’ (DWFI); these are communication systems based on digital technologies that allow for creating so-called ‘feedback data’ via different forms of information input of workers in global value chains (GVC). The paper provides an overview of over 50 current DWFIs in GVCs and asks about the main differences between management-oriented and worker-centred digital feedback infrastructures in their usage of worker data. In the first part, we trace the emergence of DWFIs at the intersection of different trends: the continuous non-improvement of working conditions through auditing, the permanent politicisation, and contestation of this fact through labour and activist networks as well as the development of new digital technologies. In the second section, we elaborate the main features of DWFIs and analyse potential shortcomings in the context of the ‘ethical’ audit and monitoring regime for GVCs. Third, we use our dataset to present an overview of the heterogeneity of DWFIs. We pay particular attention to examples of civil society developed tools as we suggest that they provide a glimpse of the potential of worker feedback technologies from below, which could contribute to better monitoring of worker rights and facilitate a more democratic coordination of workplaces and GVCs.

This paper focuses on the migrant pay gap in Spain. Going beyond descriptive evidence of the differences between immigrants and nationals in terms of wages, we analyse which part of the gross wage is most affected by features that cannot be captured using econometric models. Relying on microdata from the Wage Structure Survey, we divide the total gross wage into two main parts: base wage and wage supplements. Then we decompose the migrant wage gap into the explained and the unexplained terms, using a simple decomposition methodology, the Oaxaca-Blinder model. Our results show that a part of the differences in wage supplements does not seem to be explained by the set of control variables introduced in the model and that this effect is more pronounced when only men are considered. These findings offer a new perspective on the migrant pay gap in Spain and point to the importance of wage-setting practices related to wage supplements in explaining (and widening) the total migrant pay gap in our country.

The concept of Smart Specialisation (S3) as a foundation of regional development has spread far beyond the European Union. In Australia, S3 appeared first in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, but was applied in its most developed form in the Gippsland region of Victoria. Despite its growing influence, S3 has come in for criticism. In this article, we look at the way that the Foundational Economy (FE) and the related concept of Deep Place (DP) analysis have been promoted as potential answers to these limitations. I question how far FE and DP should be seen as an extension of or an alternative to S3. I look to more extensive approaches that have been put forward.

The vulnerability associated with the drudgery of drivers in the ride-hailing enterprise of the platform economy has come under both public scrutiny and scholarly study. There remains, however, a dearth of knowledge around how driver vulnerabilities are produced and maintained, and which actors drive those. This paper contributes to the discourse by unpacking how the political economy of digital capitalism plays out to undermine the fortunes of ride-hailing drivers in Ghana. Using qualitative interviews and focus group discussions, the paper shows that drivers’ vulnerabilities stem primarily from the unbridled control over the means of production, which are the digital platforms and the vehicles, as well as the ensuing unequal power relations between capital owners and drivers as capital producers. The paper also characterises the ambivalent role of the State as a capitalist agent that maintains the status quo, albeit nuanced. The need to interrogate alternatives to augment State regulation is therefore recommended for mediating the relationship between capital owners and drivers as capital producers. Effective alternatives would be reducing capital’s monopoly by replacing private, foreign platforms with local public platforms and strengthening drivers’ collective agency to mediate the excessive power of the capital owners.

The study looks at the defining features of various labour dispute resolution modes and their appropriateness in Zimbabwe. Researchers used a qualitative approach to collect and analyse data, drawing on a purposive sampling method to select and distribute open-ended questionnaires to 38 participants. The study established that the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) modes used in Zimbabwe are collective bargaining, conciliation, and arbitration, all formalised and regulated by the Labour Act (2015). Nevertheless, these ADR mechanisms have numerous flaws including, that they are not ‘culturally’ close to citizens, and as a result, access to justice is still a challenge, they are also expensive and cannot be easily understood by ordinary employees. Accordingly, the study recommends that the government amend the Labour Act (2015) to return to the old conciliation and arbitration system which was decentralised to the districts. When making the amendments to the Labour Act, the government should also consult with general employees and employers, because they are the victims of the current system. Furthermore, workers’ committees and trade unions should also be empowered to support and educate employees.

‘Post-Keynesian’ became an umbrella term for those heterodox economists wanting to move away from the dominant neo-classical paradigm but not comfortable with another umbrella term of ‘political economy’. This review is about the contributions to understanding societal and economic change from an established and internationally recognised group of post-Keynesian economists. Many of the features which differentiate them from other, and sometimes fluid, subsets of post-Keynesian economists derive from their Kaleckian inspiration.

This synthetic commentary offers a handful of observations. First, it highlights structural differences between the advanced market/capitalist economy that forms the theoretical scaffolding of Keynesian theory, as against the diverse range of structural and institutional configurations that characterise contemporary developing economies. Second, bearing these distinctions in mind, how far does the notion of “full employment” hold relevance in the context of developing economies? Third, the focus shifts to the central Keynesian policy prescription: reflating economic activity through injecting additional demand into the system, in extremis through pump-priming, digging and filling trenches – would this perform in a poor agrarian economy? Would the multiplier work and deliver in the realities of developing economies? Fourth, the central policy agenda in the South was that of launching industrialisation, leading to a sustained structural transformation of the economy – a la the Kaldorian industrialisation paradigm, which is scarcely visible in the (post-)Keynesianism template. Fifth, it queries the investment function and the role of state investment, and/or of “animal spirits” of capitalist entrepreneurs and agents, whether of domestic or foreign origins. Sixth, there is need to widen the focus, as well argued by Hans Singer, Amiya Bagchi and others, from Keynes-I of The General Theory, to Keynes-II of Bretton Woods, thereby substantially widening the interface with the agenda of development. Finally, there is the inevitable question concerning the nature and role of the state in the contrasting developed-vs-developing-economy, then-and-now scenarios. This discursive commentary is largely a Cambridge dialogue, not inappropriate in a tribute to Geoff Harcourt.

Financial literacy is a dangerous illusion. The article builds on existing critiques, notably the work of Lauren Willis, to show that the discourse of financial literacy education raises fundamental epistemological issues about the nature of financial markets and financial behaviour. The difficulties of achieving financial literacy are ill conceived simply as the outcomes of market imperfections. Instead, structural inequalities, financial reform, and the nature of financial assets preclude consumers from achieving adequate levels of financial competence and the claim that they can do so diverts attention from the causes of unequal economic outcomes.

The title of this article is a riff off a publication of G. C. Harcourt’s 1974 piece, ‘The social consequences of inflation’. He wrote this in a period of the global economy that bears some strong similarities to our own contemporary phase when inflation is suddenly back in the global headlines. There is at least one significant difference: at that time, Harcourt highlighted inflation as the outcome of an excess of total demand in real terms over available supplies of goods and services when the potential workforces and existing stocks of capital goods were fully employed. Current inflationary pressures, by contrast, arise from the combination of specific sectoral supply bottlenecks, rising profit margins in oligopolistic global markets for food and fuel and financial speculation in these markets.

This paper focuses on the state of precarious work in Spain: Are all those who work as self-employed persons and interns truly operating under those descriptions, or are many of them employees so precariously engaged that they have no labour contracts? If so, how has this come to pass? Why is it increasingly happening? This paper raises some answers based on the Marxist approach. We link employment instability to increased exploitation of the Spanish labour force. This trend is a reaction by capital to low rates of profit and the implementation of particular governmental economic policies implemented to meet the demands of the European Union. Due to the precariousness of work, prospects for achieving a stable and autonomous life for a large cohort of Spain’s working youth are seriously threatened.

This article adopts a labour process theory approach to analysing distinct circuits of labour control in platform video game work in China, a novel manifestation of the platform economy rooted in the special formation of Chinese gaming infrastructure as well as in precarious labour regimes. Platform game work encompasses a broad range of online video game services such as live game streaming, paid boosting, and game companion, matching customers’ demands to workers who provide entertainment or assist play. Platform game work has drawn an estimated seven million young workers into precarious employment during the past decade. The article outlines three interwoven features defining the fragmented control of platform game work: the crucial function of extra-platform intermediaries in regulating labour processes; the deployment of relationship labour in order matching and community management; and the mutual reinforcement of platform diversity and fast-moving platform architecture. These three features co-create a decentralised yet resilient structure organised by a network of platform and non-platform, human and machine agencies. Positioning platform game work in the broad spectrum of gig work, the article illuminates new modes of labour control and workers’ embedded agency, adding to the nascent literature on diverse labour regimes and subjectivities in the platform economy.

Commercial motor vehicle driving is one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States. The production of most trucking services takes places on public roadways, which makes commercial motor vehicle safety a topic of concern for industry stakeholders, supply chain operations, policy makers, and the general public. This study explores the relationship between new employee driver compensation and for-hire interstate truckload motor carrier crash incidence. The results suggest that, all else constant, higher benefits are associated with fewer crashes. While mileage pay rates predict crashes, we find that higher mileage rates can be correlated with either higher or lower crash frequency – depending on the carrier’s existing starting pay level. This may be due to pernicious incentives created by piece-rate pay structures, because drivers who have more unpaid non-driving work time may earn a slightly higher mileage pay rate, which only partially compensates them for unpaid labour time. Regardless, these results suggest that compensation is an important predictor of safety and the existing pay practices in the industry may be unsafe. It also suggests that the role of compensation in motor carrier safety performance deserves further exploration with better quality data–especially full documentation of hours of work and pay rates.