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The Blurb On The Back:
What is life like for workers in the gig economy? Is it a paradise of flexibility and individual freedom? Or is it a world of exploitation and conflict? Callum Cant took a job with one of the most prominent platforms, Deliveroo, to find out.
His vivid account of the reality is grim. Workers toil under conditions set by the company’s algorithms, but they are not resigned to maintaining the status quo. Cant reveals a transactional network of encrypted chats and informal groups which have given birth to a wave of strikes and protests. Far from being atomised individuals helpless in the face of massive tech companies, workers are tearing up the rule book and taking back control. New developments in the workplace are combining to produce an explosive subterranean class struggle - where the stakes are high, and the risks are higher.
Riding For Deliveroo is the first portrait of a new generation of working class militants. Its mixture of compelling first-hand testimony and engaging analysis is essential for anyone wishing to understand class struggle in platform capitalism.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
Callum Cant is a former Deliveroo rider currently studying for a PhD at the University of West London focusing on worker self-organisation in UK pubs, call centres and platforms. There are some interesting points in this book, which looks at the organisation by delivery drivers for Deliveroo and UberEats but the Marxist class struggle analysis is at times laughably reductive and some of his suggestions to fix the problems wholly unrealistic.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
What is life like for workers in the gig economy? Is it a paradise of flexibility and individual freedom? Or is it a world of exploitation and conflict? Callum Cant took a job with one of the most prominent platforms, Deliveroo, to find out.
His vivid account of the reality is grim. Workers toil under conditions set by the company’s algorithms, but they are not resigned to maintaining the status quo. Cant reveals a transactional network of encrypted chats and informal groups which have given birth to a wave of strikes and protests. Far from being atomised individuals helpless in the face of massive tech companies, workers are tearing up the rule book and taking back control. New developments in the workplace are combining to produce an explosive subterranean class struggle - where the stakes are high, and the risks are higher.
Riding For Deliveroo is the first portrait of a new generation of working class militants. Its mixture of compelling first-hand testimony and engaging analysis is essential for anyone wishing to understand class struggle in platform capitalism.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
Callum Cant is a former Deliveroo rider currently studying for a PhD at the University of West London focusing on worker self-organisation in UK pubs, call centres and platforms. There are some interesting points in this book, which looks at the organisation by delivery drivers for Deliveroo and UberEats but the Marxist class struggle analysis is at times laughably reductive and some of his suggestions to fix the problems wholly unrealistic.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
