Riders on the Storm: Workplace Solidarity among Gig Economy Couriers in Italy and the UK

Introduction

The emergence in recent years of the so-called ‘gig economy’ is disrupting established patterns of work organisation and employment relations. The term ‘gig economy’ refers to the parcelled nature of the small tasks or jobs (the ‘gigs’) that individuals are contracted to carry out by companies (often platforms) adopting this model of service provision. Gig economy companies adopt platforms as their operational model, using internet technology to act as de facto intermediaries of labour supply and demand for the provision of services – such as delivery, cleaning, admin and data processing work. Gigs are allocated and managed digitally, often through algorithmic management methods. The number of workers engaged through platforms is growing rapidly. For instance, a survey by Huws et al. (2017) shows that in 2016–2017 between 9% and 22% of workers across seven European countries generated some income from gig work.

The gig economy can be regarded as the latest stage in the development of atypical forms of employment. Its growth has engendered considerable debate about its implications for regulatory and protective institutions (De Stefano, 2016). Gig work threatens established forms of regulation based on collective bargaining, creating legal ‘grey areas’ (Scholz, 2017: 125) where individuals are left without access to social safety nets. Yet, despite recent advancements in theorising the labour process in the gig economy (Gandini, 2019; Veen et al., 2019), understanding of the social relations established between gig workers is still limited. In particular, the potentials, conditions and limits for the emergence of solidarity and of collective action among gig workers are only starting to be explored (cf. Lehdonvirta, 2016; Waters and Woodcock, 2017; Wood et al., 2018). This article aims to develop this understanding and contribute to this nascent stream of literature.

Workers’ solidarity is often conceptualised as the basis from which forms of collective action within and beyond the workplace can develop (Atzeni, 2010; Fantasia, 1988). Studying solidarity and its links to collective action in the gig economy is thus fundamental to understand the labour movement’s prospects in the current phase of transformation of the world of work. The emergence of solidarity and collective action among gig workers might have seemed unlikely, given the atomisation and spatial dispersal characterising their jobs and the imbalanced power relations between workers and platforms. Nonetheless, since 2016, various gig economy platforms – such as the ride-hailing app Uber or the food delivery platforms Deliveroo, UberEats and Foodora – have attracted attention in several countries as epicentres of labour unrest. These episodes force scholars to question existing assumptions about the potential for the emergence of solidarity and, possibly, of collective action in this new frontier of precarious work.

This article tackles this task by developing a comparative analysis of two cases of ‘unlikely’ gig workers’ mobilisation in the food delivery sector which have unfolded since 2016 in two different contexts: the case of Deliveroo riders in England, and the case of Foodora riders in Italy. The study addresses two research questions. First, how does solidarity emerge among gig workers? Second, in which forms does it manifest? The article will argue that despite some obstacles posed by the platform model of work organisation, worker solidarity in the gig economy is possible and rooted in the structural antagonism intrinsic in the labour process. Its development, however, is not mechanistic but shaped by workers’ agential practices and by diverse contextual factors. While the focus is on food delivery platforms, the article offers insights on the potential for and limits to solidarity in the broader gig economy.

Food delivery platforms, employment relations and work organisation in the gig economy

While terms like the ‘platform economy’ or ‘gig economy’ encompass a multitude of platforms, the most effective differentiation is between ‘crowdwork’ and ‘gig work’ platforms (De Stefano, 2016). In the former, job activities are performed remotely through online platforms; in the latter, workers complete physical and location-specific work activities organised through apps (De Stefano, 2016). This article focuses on food delivery platforms, which belong to the location-specific platform model. Food delivery platforms can be described as four-sided platforms (Figure 1), which on the one hand connect clients and restaurants, on the other manage the supply of couriers for restaurants via algorithmic management methods.

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Figure 1.

Four-sided model of food delivery platforms (author’s own elaboration).

Workers log onto smartphone apps to receive delivery jobs allocated by location. Workers experience information asymmetry with respect to the platforms, as companies usually maintain secrecy on the mechanism of allocation of deliveries (Shapiro, 2018; Veen et al., 2019). Working time flexibility varies: while platforms promote it as a main advantage, in some cities couriers must sign up for shifts in advance. Using delivery platforms, restaurants can access a flexible labour force without management responsibilities and suppressing costs in low-demand periods. As a low value-added service, suppressing labour costs is a key profitability driver in food delivery. Labour costs are minimised by hiring couriers as independent or para-subordinate contractors, with different contractual models depending on national legislation. As contractors, couriers generally have no right to minimum wage, paid holidays or sick leave. ¹ Moreover, this contractual status offers few, if any, protections from dismissal. Furthermore, most food delivery platforms tend to switch from hourly wages to payment-by-delivery over time, shifting enterprise risk on the couriers: if there is no demand, they are not paid, despite being available for work. Finally, couriers use their own bikes and smartphones, hence platforms save on structural costs.

Various types of ‘techno-normative forms of control’ (Gandini, 2019: 1041) ensure control of a geographically dispersed workforce (Shapiro, 2018; Veen et al., 2019). Workers can be monitored through GPS technology (Moore et al., 2017) and data collected used for performance management (Veen et al., 2019). The functioning of the algorithm cannot be scrutinised by workers, making it open to strategic use by the platform (e.g. to reward or disadvantage workers depending on their productivity or acquiescence) (Veen et al., 2019). Consequently, workers could be less inclined to take cohesive collective action against management for fear of retribution.

The operational model poses further potential constraints to the emergence of solidarity among workers. Platforms seek to establish individualised employment relations. Being classified as contractors means that gig workers are normally neither covered by collective bargaining nor entitled to union representation. Work activity is also organised as a non-collective process: on a day-to-day basis, workers interact almost exclusively with the app which allocates delivery jobs. This apparent individualism, coupled with the ‘invisibilisation’ of the managerial figure, may obfuscate the ‘reality of collective participation in the labour process’ (Martinez Lucio and Stewart, 1997: 53), undermining bases for collectivism. The spatial dispersal of work activity may also reduce chances for couriers to build social relations and forge a sense of shared identity.

Different levels of dependence on gig work may also impede consolidation of shared identities. Recent evidence (e.g. Broughton et al., 2018) suggests that gig workers may be segmented in terms of attachment to the job – with a small core relying on gig work as a primary income source, and a larger margin participating sporadically. This segmentation can create divisions in the ‘interests’ of different workforce components regarding remuneration models, contractual forms and attitudes towards ‘flexibility’, as well as in incentives to organise collectively to improve conditions.

Despite these obstacles, since 2016, mobilisations of gig workers across Europe have increased remarkably. Couriers of food delivery platforms have been at the forefront of this ongoing wave of collective action. This offers scholars the opportunity to interrogate theoretically and empirically the processes that underpin the emergence of solidarity ‘against the odds’ in this seemingly hostile context, and the mechanisms that connect the emergence of solidarity to different forms of collective action.

Defining the analytical lens: Solidarity, the labour process and collective action

The conceptualisation of solidarity – within and beyond work – and its links with mobilisation have been extensively debated in the literature, leading to some theoretical ambiguity. D’Art and Turner (2002: 11) define solidarity as a ‘community of interests, feelings and actions’. This understanding implies existence of shared material conditions among members of a group, and realisation that their improvement is best pursued collectively. Collective feelings of reciprocal sympathy and responsibility (Wilde, 2007: 171) expressed through specific forms of action, such as mutual support and preparedness to share resources with others through personal contribution (Stjernø, 2004: 2), are also central to the concept. Solidarity additionally implies that group members recognise their general shared condition and purpose, even when their immediate, individual interests are not fully coincident (Hyman, 1999; Kolers, 2012).

In the context of labour relations, solidarity can be articulated at different levels – such as the workplace, the union or the broader working class (Bild et al., 1997). Working-class solidarity (i.e. solidarity among workers who acquire consciousness as a class for itself overcoming professional, sectoral and even national divisions) has been understood both as the basis of labour militancy (Fantasia, 1988) and as a central power resource for unions. To understand how solidarity can emerge in the specific setting of the gig economy, it is, however, more appropriate to focus on the articulation of solidarity at workplace level. Workplace solidarity is usually described as a group attitude developed in the work context and rooted in workers’ interactions (Fantasia, 1988), shared experiences (Hodson et al., 1993), feelings of mutual dependency (Atzeni, 2010) and collective identity (Bild et al., 1997). As a minimum, solidarity entails group cohesion and collective activities of mutual defence and reciprocal support (Dixon et al., 2004; Hodson et al., 1993), which arise from workers’ recognition of their shared condition and through which they pursue their collective goals at work.

Solidarity at work is hereby defined as a condition where workers develop collective feelings of reciprocity and responsibility towards one another on the basis of an awareness of their ultimately shared interests and purpose – and are prepared to act upon such feelings through solidaristic actions. Atzeni (2010: 28–29) argues that such forms of embryonic solidarity are commonplace at workplace level, where workers develop a sense of collective identity distinct to management (Fantasia, 1988: 108). Embryonic solidarity is thus the basis for the emergence of active solidarity – where the preparedness to act actually translates in collective action (Atzeni, 2010: 28–29).

Following Atzeni (2010), this article argues that the emergence of active solidarity among workers is rooted in the inherent contradictions of the capitalist labour process. At the basis of the labour process perspective (Braverman, 1974) is the idea that managerial action must be understood in the context of capital–labour relations as motivated by employers’ attempts to control and stabilise the ‘unruly’ factor of production (i.e. living labour). This push for the extraction of value from workers through control practices in the labour process necessarily generates contradictions ‘which surface at the point of production as conflicts between workers and management’ (Cohen, 1987: 7). On this basis, the labour process becomes ‘the site where both the opposition of labour to capital and yet its dependence on it are constantly reproduced and solidarity linkages established’ (Atzeni, 2010: 19). The formation of ‘active’ solidarity refers thus to the process whereby workers, by becoming aware of the collective nature of the labour process, develop consciousness of their shared interests and come to act collectively on that sense of unity and mutual dependency, in opposition to management, overcoming the apparent individualisation of their day-to-day work experiences (Martinez Lucio and Stewart, 1997).

The extent to which specific labour process features – such as the collectivism or individualism of work organisation, the type of control and the level of autonomy that workers experience – affect solidarity has been extensively debated (Hodson, 1997; Hodson et al., 1993; Vallas, 1987). In the individualised and dispersed labour process of the gig economy, the ‘material’ foundations for solidarity could be expected to be weaker than in traditional ‘Fordist’ workplaces characterised by workers’ physical compresence, where the ‘collective’ nature of the labour process may be more easily apparent. The internal differentiation of the workforce on the basis of contractual status, labour market attachment and skills, and the associated intensification of intra-class competition in the post-Fordist era also potentially undermine the consolidation of shared workers’ identities (cf. Hyman, 1999; Touraine et al., 1987). The internal segmentation of the gig economy workforce might thus pose an additional obstacle to solidarity.

In line with Fantasia (1988) and Atzeni (2010), however, this article adopts a non-deterministic conceptualisation of the linkages between solidarity, the labour process and the workforce features. This article holds that the bases of worker solidarity lie in the structural contradictions originating from the labour process, which emerge at the point of production and become manifested despite the individualism of platform-mediated work organisation. At the same time, the development of solidarity is conceptualised as a historically specific, evolving process, underpinned by workers’ agential practices, where different context-specific factors can combine to explain its emergence and manifestation (Atzeni, 2010: 32). The analysis of the cases will thus highlight several contextual conditions and mechanisms, internal and external to the labour process, which contributed to facilitating, mediating or hindering the emergence of active solidarity among gig workers beyond the triggers and obstacles posed by features of the labour process. These include the availability of ‘free spaces’ (Polletta, 1999); workers’ framing activity (Hyman, 1999; Simms, 2012); the acquisition of consciousness through action (Fantasia, 1988); management’s counter-mobilisation strategies (Atzeni, 2010; O’Sullivan and Turner, 2013); and unions’ involvement (Dixon et al., 2004).

The last theoretical issue concerns the multiple forms through which active solidarity is expressed. As the definition above highlights, active solidarity implies cohesive action. Collective action – such as strikes and other forms of collective conflict – has been historically focused upon as the main expression of workers’ active solidarity, and the privileged site for its study (cf. Dixon et al., 2004; Fantasia, 1988). This study shares this interest, as it focuses on cases where mobilisations did take place to investigate how within the gig economy embryonic solidarity can be turned into active solidarity. However, forms of solidaristic action other than collective action are possible – including low-key, day-to-day forms of conflict, resistance and mutual support (cf. Hodson, 1997; Mulholland, 2004). Especially in the context of ‘digital’ labour relations, new channels for expressing grievances and taking action acquire importance, such as social media, online forums and messaging apps (Lee and Staples, 2018).

Finally, it is also possible that embryonic solidarity might not be activated at all (Atzeni, 2010), and forms of solidaristic action not manifested. While embryonic solidarity is the conditio sine qua non of any process of collective action in labour relations, solidarity is not sufficient for mobilisation. Hence, the forms through which solidarity is expressed, and the conditions that shape how encompassing and durable these are, must be studied contextually. Building on this theoretical apparatus, this article investigates the processes through which solidarity emerges in the ‘unlikely’ context of the gig economy labour process, and the conditions and agential practices that facilitate, hinder and shape its form of expression and reach in different contexts.

Case selection, methods and data

This study compares two qualitative case studies (Yin, 2013) of gig workers’ mobilisation as sites to investigate the process of solidarity formation: the mobilisation of couriers of the food delivery platform Deliveroo in the cities of London and Brighton in England, and of the food delivery platform Foodora in the city of Turin in Italy. Both cases are empirically salient as they were the first episodes of gig workers’ mobilisation in their respective countries, generating considerable public debate. Theoretically, both cases can be regarded as ‘unlikely’ instances of mobilisation, given the potential constraints to the emergence of active solidarity identified above. Hence, they are well suited for testing prior theoretical expectations regarding the links between the labour process, solidarity and collective action. Case comparison allows the study of the nexus between similar underlying labour processes, different contextual conditions and the forms of solidarity expression; and offers analytical leverage to identify the common, theoretically relevant conditions affecting solidarity activation across distinct contexts.

Data sources include semi-structured in-depth interviews; informal interviews; participant observation of four riders’ meetings; and analysis of documentary and social media sources (see online Appendix 1). The authors conducted 18 qualitative semi-structured interviews (between 30 and 120 minutes long) with 15 gig workers and trade unionists directly involved in various capacities in the mobilisations in Turin, Brighton and London between October 2016 and November 2018 (10 in Italy, eight in the UK); and nine interviews with gig workers and unionists with knowledge of the cases and involved in similar campaigns in the two countries (see online Appendix 1). To guarantee anonymity, interviewees are identified with a code throughout the text.

Participants were recruited through purposive and snowball sampling (Yin, 2013), drawing on the authors’ connections in labour activist networks to facilitate contact with gatekeepers in riders’ groups or unions. The sample is numerically limited and not representative of the whole workforce. As the research aimed to understand the emergence of solidarity in and through action, the authors deliberately recruited interviewees involved in the mobilisations as their perspectives were deemed the most relevant to the research goals. However, participants with diverse involvement levels (courier-organisers, participants in mobilisations, trade union reps) were recruited to compare perspectives. The focus on mobilisation participants and the limited evidence base implies that the findings are partial and cannot shed light on the motivations of non-participating workers. All interviewees bar three were men, reflecting the male-dominated workforce composition; all workers interviewed were cyclists; and only one had a migrant background. While reflective of the profile of participants in mobilisations in the Italian case, the under-sampling of moped drivers and migrant workers represents a shortcoming for the UK case.

The authors were never directly involved in the mobilisations but followed an ‘engaged’ approach to research (Milan, 2014), building a relationship of trust with the interviewees while defining clear boundaries to maintain critical distance. The authors’ ‘partisan’ stance towards the riders’ grievances facilitated connection with informants (see Fantasia, 1988: 247–254). The authors engaged in repeated interactions and informal interviews with some key informants over a two-year period. This ongoing exchange of perspectives facilitated building of trust, allowed for a longitudinal understanding of the cases and increased trustworthiness of findings (Harrison et al., 2001). The authors’ engaged positionality also involved sharing knowledge of the sector with interviewees and contributing to increasing the visibility of their mobilisations to non-academic audiences (see, for example, Tassinari and Maccarrone, 2017a). These activities attempted to ensure relevance of research knowledge for subjects involved (Milan, 2014), and to fulfil ethical commitments to reciprocity (Harrison et al., 2001).

To validate emerging insights, interviews were complemented by the analysis of over 500 documentary sources (newspaper articles, press releases and posts on the riders’ groups’ Facebook pages) and by participant observation of four riders’ assemblies. In these settings, informal interviews (Spradley, 1979) were conducted with several couriers besides those interviewed formally. The authors additionally conducted two expert interviews with researchers who had conducted ethnographic research on the same cases (see online Appendix 1).

Data analysis followed an open-ended inductive approach, based on iterative stages of thematic coding of interviews, field notes and documents in NVivo (Version 11). After the first analysis stage, key emergent themes deemed of theoretical relevance (e.g. sources of antagonism in the labour process; role of ‘free spaces’ and social relations, presence of unions, workforce differentiation and managerial counter-action) were followed up in subsequent interviews.

Evidence: Conflict and protest in Deliveroo and Foodora

The two cases of gig workers’ mobilisation are now introduced in turn. The Deliveroo workforce in London comprises of thousands of riders, divided between cyclists – predominantly young, white and British, and moped drivers – predominantly migrant workers and on average older. The first protest of London Deliveroo workers started in August 2016, following the announcement of a change in payment policy from hourly wage to piecework payment. Around 150 moped drivers gathered outside Deliveroo’s head offices in London demanding the restoration of the hourly wage and were soon joined by many of their cyclist colleagues. The gathering turned into the first ‘unofficial strike’ of Deliveroo workers in the UK. Hundreds of couriers logged out from the app, causing work stoppages that lasted on-and-off for six days. They held mass gatherings outside the company’s offices, flying pickets around the city to raise visibility, and coordinated reputational attacks against Deliveroo’s social media pages.

The protest attracted considerable public attention, and the company eventually agreed not to unilaterally impose the new payment system, instead starting an opt-in trial with one month of guaranteed wages. Attempts at union organising only started after this first mobilisation episode. The IWGB (Independent Workers Union of Great Britain) – a rank-and-file independent union already active in the delivery sector in London – intervened to support the workers during the protests, and then started a longer-term campaign for unionisation. Since August 2016, episodes of strikes and demonstrations of Deliveroo workers have taken place in several other cities – first in Brighton, then across most of the UK – where workers have taken action to denounce low pay, the lack of sufficient work resulting from the excessive size of the workforce, and the lack of coverage for health and safety risks. Organising and mobilisation of food delivery platform workers, supported by rank-and-file unions such as the IWGB or IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), continue across the UK to the present day (May 2019).

In Italy, around 300 couriers worked for Foodora in Turin when the first protest broke out in October 2016. At the time, the couriers, exclusively cyclists, were mostly Italian young people. A group comprising almost three-quarters of the workforce had previously presented a letter with requests to the company, but as in London, it was a change in contractual terms which led to the mobilisation. Indeed, in September 2016, Foodora began hiring riders on a new piecework payment system. When the extension of this pay model to the whole workforce was announced, a group of couriers staged a ‘proto-strike’ in response. The riders ‘unlogged’ from the app en masse; this was combined with flying pickets around the city, a coordinated online campaign targeting the company’s social media pages, and invitations to consumers to boycott the app. Three demands were advanced: a higher hourly rate and an end to piecework payment; a change in contractual terms to be recognised as employees; and an end to the company’s victimisation practices against perceived ‘troublemakers’. The protests were self-organised by the workers with some support from the grass-root union SI-COBAS. Unlike in the UK, no unionisation effort took place subsequently. ²

Following the high media attention, Foodora eventually conceded an increase in the delivery fee and some discount agreements for bike repairs. Yet, the company refused to meet the more substantial demands: the reinstatement of hourly wages and the reclassification of its riders as employees. Furthermore, the contracts of some of the riders most active in the protest were not renewed. A group continued nonetheless to organise – both within Foodora and in other delivery companies – forming a self-organised collective. Subsequent protests and ‘proto-strikes’ were held in the following months, spreading also to the cities of Milan and Bologna, and continue to the present day (May 2019).

As these brief case histories show, the issues triggering the disputes and the ensuing dynamics of mobilisation were similar across the two cases. The main glaring difference relates to unions’ involvement in supporting couriers’ collective action – present in the UK but absent in Italy. The article now proceeds to analyse comparatively the conditions and processes which shaped the emergence of solidarity, its expression and its limits in the two cases, and the salient differences between them.

Solidarity in the gig economy

I’ve been thinking, […] how does the labour movement form when there is no shared space, like, physical space? But as long as there is a shared condition, as long as two people interact at some point and they find some way to communicate with each other, it doesn’t matter if there is no shared factory space, because there is a shared condition. Which is, the job is bullshit. (UK8)

The emergence of collective action suggests that, despite the individualised labour process, solidaristic ties among a section of gig workers consolidated in both contexts. The process of solidarity development in the two cases is now reconstructed by investigating the bases of collective antagonism intrinsic in the contradictions of the app-mediated labour process; the mechanisms and conditions that shaped how solidarity was manifested and consolidated over time; and the limits of its reach.

Discussion and conclusions

This article contributes to and extends the literature on workplace solidarity through an investigation of how solidarity can emerge and be manifested in the empirically novel context of the gig economy. Figure 2 summarises the processes and conditions which facilitated the emergence of active solidarity in the two cases analysed; the factors which hindered its reach and consolidation; and its varied forms of expressions. The theoretical and empirical implications of the findings are now discussed.

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Figure 2.

Solidarity in the gig economy: summary of findings.

First, the article demonstrates and advances the analytical value of the labour process perspective both in understanding workers’ solidarity and mobilisation (cf. Atzeni, 2010), and in conceptualising work in the gig economy (cf. Gandini, 2019; Veen et al., 2019). In line with insights by Atzeni (2010), the analysis shows that the emergence of active solidarity is linked to the inherent contradictions of the capitalist labour process. In the gig economy, antagonism against management and active solidarity arise both from the process of valorisation which platforms adopt (manifest in workers’ commonplace dissatisfaction with remuneration and insecurity), and from workers’ experiences of opaque managerial control, intensified by the use of algorithmic management methods (Shapiro, 2018; Veen et al., 2019).

The article further advances our understanding of the labour process in the gig economy, by highlighting the ambiguous and contradictory nature of workforce control (Thompson and van den Broek, 2010) leveraged through technological and contractual means. On the one hand, opaque managerial techniques and information asymmetries between the platforms and the workforce help the companies to maintain control of ‘marginally attached workers who are geographically dispersed’ (Shapiro, 2018; Veen et al., 2019: 14). On the other, the issue of control can become a trigger of mobilisation, while the invisibilisation of the managerial figure (Gandini, 2019) allows workers to socialise and organise in spaces at least partially free from the managerial gaze. Similar contradictions arise from the platforms’ classification of workers as independent contractors. On the one hand, this strengthens platforms’ coercive power, by facilitating dismissal and locking them out of traditional collective voice channels such as collective bargaining. On the other, the use of these contracts reduces the platforms’ formal degree of control over the workforce (Veen et al., 2019) and paradoxically allows workers to bypass restrictive strike regulation which applies to employees in contexts like the UK. These findings demonstrate the ever ambiguous and incomplete nature of employer control over living labour, even in the context of highly unbalanced power relations.

Second, the analysis contributes to advancing an agential understanding of the emergence of workplace solidarity. The findings show that far from being mechanistic, the consolidation of active solidarity is a context-specific process (cf. Atzeni, 2010; Fantasia, 1988), and that agential practices are central in forging collective identity and overcoming the obstacles posed by capitalist work organisation. By showing the diversity of forms through which solidarity can be manifested in the gig economy, the article further contributes to nuancing our conceptualisation of solidaristic action in hostile work contexts (cf. Mulholland, 2004), and reinforces the importance of not equating the absence of overt mobilisation with anomie. Rather than conceiving it as a dichotomy of presence/absence, our analysis suggests that the expression of solidarity, in the gig economy and beyond, is best theorised as a continuum – which can range from day-to-day behaviours of reciprocity embodying the collective nature of the labour process (e.g. mutual help and support among couriers), to individual participation in low-risk acts of resistance and contestation (e.g. abstention from work, online action inflicting reputational damage), to more ‘conventional’ forms of collective labour mobilisation (e.g. protests, wildcat strikes, pickets).

Lastly, the article contributes to shedding light on the connections between workplace solidarity and unionism. Even though the gig economy still largely lies outside the confines of conventional collective bargaining and unionisation patterns, the analysis shows that this does not constitute an insurmountable obstacle to the emergence of solidaristic commitments and collective action among workers. Rather, the consolidation of active solidarity is possible even in the absence of institutionalised collective representation channels, and compatible with considerable heterogeneity in organisational forms, from rank-and-file unions to self-organised workers’ collectives. Without contradicting the insights of the rich literature on the reciprocal links between solidarity and unionism (cf. Dixon et al., 2004; O’Sullivan and Turner, 2013; Simms and Dean, 2015), these findings reinforce the importance of analysing concrete processes of the emergence of workers’ solidarity also beyond the confines of union-organised labour (Atzeni, 2010; Fantasia, 1988). At the same time, the British case shows that unions can be enablers of solidarity in the gig economy, despite the presence of long-standing obstacles to union intervention such as workers’ precariousness and the lack of institutionalised collective bargaining channels. Arguably, unions’ capacity to adapt their strategies and action repertoires to the specific context of the gig economy will be key in determining whether they will be able to act effectively in this difficult terrain.

In terms of limitations, the evidence base did not allow for systematic exploration of the relationships between gig workers’ individual circumstances and characteristics; their differentiated reliance on gig work; the solidaristic attachments they developed; and the solidaristic action they were willing to take. Future research should further investigate these relationships, focusing in particular on the potential for long-term solidarity to extend to those segments of the gig workforce that might perceive stronger benefits from ‘flexibility’ and downplay issues of ‘security’; and to the most vulnerable components. In particular, the extent to which platforms reproduce racialised and gendered hierarchies to leverage control over vulnerable populations (cf. van Doorn, 2017: 908), and how such hierarchies are reflected in the solidaristic ties articulated amongst gig workers, remains to be further explored.

Overall, this study has shown that despite the obstacles posed by some features of the platform model of work organisation, it is possible for workers to counterbalance the power disparities that characterise the gig economy by articulating active solidarity, which gives collective expression to the underlying antagonism of the labour process. Practically, this study raises hopes as well as doubts about the possibility of replicating similar experiences in other segments of the gig economy. Indeed, some elements of the work process that were crucial for the emergence of active solidarity among gig couriers, such as the presence of physical meeting points, pertain only to location-based platforms. Yet, virtual meeting spaces might be able to fulfil similar functions for online platforms (cf. Wood et al., 2018). The capacity of gig workers in the UK and Italy to overcome significant obstacles to the emergence of active solidarity, and the spread of similar mobilisation across several European countries in recent months, offer cause for optimism for the consolidation of workers’ solidarity – even in the ‘brave new world’ of gig work.

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