Labour management and resistance among platform-based food delivery couriers in Beijing

Jack Linchuan Qiu, Ping Sun and Julie Chen

Chapter 18 in A Modern Guide To Labour and the Platform Economy, 2021, pp 290-307 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter analyses the labour management systems in Chinese food-delivery platforms. Examining the food delivery platforms Meituan and Eleme, we discuss the ways in which platforms structure work and how food-delivery workers make sense of algorithms. Food-delivery workers faced an intensification of labour control and a decline in flexible scheduling over the past few years - a trend we call "de-flexiblization". Yet, couriers are not simply passive entities in the face of algorithmic control. On the contrary, they are capable of creating their own means of resistance, even subvert platform control. We propose to conceptualize courier's work as digital utility labour as it offers a conceptual anchor for further debates on platform labour in not only China but also authoritarian societies of the Global South.

Keywords: Business and Management; Economics and Finance; Innovations and Technology; Sociology and Social Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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