Author: Ludmila Abilio
The very modern and precarious ‘independent worker’: Contemporary forms of labour exploitation, control and organisation
Based on my empirical research with the motorcycle couriers in the Sao Paulo City, I discuss the connections between very precarious labour and very modern technology related to digital economy, in the context of Brazilian underdevelopment. These workers, known as ‘motoboys’, annihilate space by time with their own bodies, in a very risky and even fatal way. In Sao Paulo, they are more than 300 thousand workers, fighting the traffic around 14 hours per day. This very precarious work plays a key role to the realisation of the demands of finances and services that take place at the ‘global city’. In the last thirty years, their profession has gone under significant changes: first they were directly hired by the companies, then, became outsourced. These elements altogether, connected to the low qualification required for this profession, have resulted in a significant growth of the number of motorcycle couriers, nowadays, more than 700 thousand workers in Brazil.
In the last three years a new element is promoting relevant changes, enabling these workers to be part of the era of digital economy. The market entry of the apps for deliveries is changing labour relations, forms of exploitation, transferral of risks, earnings and the rhythm of work of the ‘motoboys’. The apps now compete with the outsourced companies; the motoboy now is becoming a self employed, independent worker. However, the ‘motoboy’ may establish his own strategies to work for both of them at the same time, promoting new informal ways of labour intensification, matching his precarious formal job with the work offer from the apps. Each year, competition grows and earnings decrease for those workers who take the risks of becoming self employed.
All these elements will also be discussed in relation to the forms of labour resistance and organisation. These workers, in the last five years, have promoted huge protests, using their motorcycle as a political instrument, blocking the main access ways of the city. Also, these professionals have established a very strong identity, based on their precarious and risky way of living. The principal aims of this paper are: 1. To present the work of the motorcycle couriers in terms of their labour conditions, their professional trajectories, their lifestyles, their relation with unions and parties. 2. Based on this case study, to discuss the obfuscated relation between very precarious work and new forms of labour subsumption enabled by digital economy.