| While the role played by recent developments in ICT in supporting the emergence and rapid proliferation of on-demand services has been studied, the phenomenon also warrants investigation into the changing norms of employment and work, as well as the exploitation of regulatory loopholes. Requiring a distributed workforce to deliver and fulfill the service, on-demand platforms disenfranchise the workers by enforcing algorithmic management. As the services are mediated by two-sided platforms, it creates information asymmetry and ambiguity in their work. Being independent contractors, on-demand workers cannot pursue traditional channels to demand their rights and appeal unilateral decisions. Thus, we need a better understanding the effects of marginalization on distributed workers, as well as the various strategies enacted to overcome these tensions. Drawing on a qualitative study of ride hailing drivers' practice and rhetoric, and a second one of their collective and collaborative empowerment strategies, my thesis finds that on-demand workers face undue amounts of evaluation, tracking, and control in their daily work. As a response, they pursue individual and collective strategies to economically empower themselves and regain autonomy in the workplace. Most importantly, their efforts showcase the reaffirmation of the human aspect of labor in the face of being replaced by automation and artificial intelligence. My study concludes by offering implications for the design of on-demand labor marketplaces, the emerging use of blockchain technology to build fairness and transparency into code, the development of new organizational forms that democratize ownership of distributed services, as well as calling for cohesion between the regulation of technology and labor. |
