Decentralised control, fragmented conflict. : Dissecting work relationships in food delivery.

Abstract

Based on a multi-sited ethnography of the platform-based food delivery sector in Italy, the paper investigates the every-day experience of riders focusing on the conflictual character that permeates the relationship with the different actors enrolled in the process of production. Drawing on Gandini’s (2019) conceptualisation of digital platforms as decentralised points of production, the aim of this paper is to broaden the analysis of food delivery work beyond the rider-algorithm nexus, in order to focus on the other loci where workplace control and conflict are materialised. Building on the conceptualization of food delivery as a multi-stakeholder management system, we show that the decentralisation of organisational control corresponds to a decentralisation and fragmentation of workplace conflict dynamics. Thus, to extend the argument that platforms represent a digitally based point of production is to recognise their role in reframing all relations involved in the labour process as relations of production. This process is by no means free of tensions and conflicts. First, we will focus on the tensions between workers inherent in the hyper-competitive platform model of work organization. Secondly, we will focus on the conflictual dynamics that characterise the riders’ relationship with clients and restaurants.