Worker Resistance in Digital Capitalism| Communication and Work From Below: The Role of Communication in Organizing Delivery Platform Workers

Abstract

This article analyzes the role of communication with delivery platform workers, drawing on research in the United Kingdom and Brazil. It discusses the relationship between communication and work from a Marxist perspective, the importance of communication “from below” among workers, and the contradictory role of communication. On the one hand, it enables the circulation of workers’ struggles as the first step of organizing. On the other hand, communication is just one of the dimensions of platform work, comprising one part of the new technical composition of work. We argue that this new technical composition repositions the role of communication to the center of the analysis once it creates an infrastructure of communication among workers that enables and shapes their struggles. From research data, the article analyzes three dimensions of communication in delivery platform work: communication at work; communication through social media; communication in struggle. It discusses the contradictory role of digital infrastructures in workers’ organization, arguing that delivery platform work creates a different relationship to power and communication from traditional industrial sectors.