Miguel Afonso Caetano"Wray proposes a detailed series of recommendations to unions for things they should demand in their contracts to maximize their chances to capitalize on the opportunities afforded by the Platform Work Directive, such as establishing a "governance body" within the company "to govern data formation, storage, handling and security issues. This body should include shop stewards and all members of the body should receive data training."
He also sets out technological tactics that unions can fund and capitalize on to maximize their use of the directive, such as hacking apps to allow gig workers to increase their earnings. He writes warmly of "the sock-puppet method," where many test accounts are used to place and book work through platforms to monitor their pricing systems to detect collusion and price rigging. This has been successfully used in Spain to create the basis for an ongoing lawsuit over price collusion.
The new world of algorithmic management and the new Platform Work Directive offers many opportunities to organized labor. However, there is always the possibility that an employer will simply refuse to follow the law – as Uber has done, after it was found guilty of violating data disclosure work and was fined €6,000/day until it came into compliance. Uber's now paid €500,000 in fines and has not disclosed the data that the law and the courts require of it.
With algorithmic management, bosses have figured out new ways to evade the law and steal from workers. The Platform Work Directive gives workers and unions a whole suite of new tools to force bosses to play fair. It's not going to be easy, but the technological capacity workers and unions develop here can be repurposed to wage all-out digital class warfare."
https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/25/roboboss/#counterapps
#EU #PWD #PlatformWorkDirective #AlgorithmicManagement #Roboboss #GigEconomy #Precarity
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