Self-exploitation among platform delivery workers : the case study of Glovo

Abstract

Having the company Glovo as case-study, the present paper discusses the circumstances under which self-exploitation unfolds among platform delivery workers. Its managerial discourses, organization of the work process through an algorithm, and workers’ strategies to successfully make a living wage of their job are critically analyzed against the backdrop of a new theoretical model, in which precarity stands as the motive, while post-disciplinary control mechanisms stand as the contextual opportunity for the emergency of a set of self-exploitative behaviors and attitudes to emerge. Through a qualitative approach, relying on interviews to different stakeholders (N=12), findings of this research highlight the advent of work-related: economic investment, time dedication, physical exhaustion, uninformed reasoning, and affective commitment, as manifestations of self-exploitation. This paper suggests that the displacement of the locus of exploitation from an outer entity (the employer), to the workers’ inner self constitutes yet another form of precarization of workers, who find themselves with no alternative but to comply with their employer’s guidelines.