Jenny Chan (2021) Hunger for Profit

Chan, Jenny. 2021. “Hunger for Profit: How Food Delivery Platforms Manage Couriers in China.” Sociologias 23(57): 58-82.

Abstract How do food delivery platform firms, such as Meituan (operated by Tencent) and Ele.me (owned by Alibaba), manage couriers through service contracting rather than formal employment? How do couriers experience control and autonomy at work? Using observation and interviews, the author finds that a combination of data-driven surveillance systems and customer feedback mechanisms are incentivizing workers’ efforts. Corporate utilization of both manual and emotional labor is critical to realizing profits. Individual freedom is framed in a way that crowdsourced couriers are not required to work a minimum amount of time. Flexibility enabled by the algorithmic management, however, cuts both ways. When there is less demand, the platform corporations automatically reduce their dependence on labor. With variable food orders and piece rates, workers’ minimum earnings are not guaranteed. In the absence of Chinese legal protections over the fast-growing food delivery sector, informal workers are desperately struggling for livelihood.◊ 

Keywords: informal work, algorithmic management, emotional labor, food delivery workers, rural migrants, China.

* The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China. 

◊ This project is funded by the Early Career Scheme of the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong (RGC Project No. 25602517) and the Start-Up Research Fund of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU Project No. P0000548).

Sociologias, Porto Alegre, ano 23, n. 57, mai-ago 2021, p. 58-82.

Andreas Bieler and Adam David Morton (2021) Is Capitalism Structurally Indifferent to Gender?

Bieler, Andreas and Adam David Morton. 2021. “Is Capitalism Structurally Indifferent to Gender?: Routes to a Value Theory of Reproductive Labour.” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. First published: 19 July. 

https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X211031572

Abstract

The contributions of Ellen Meiksins Wood to social property relations arguments have facilitated an enhanced understanding of the historical specificity of capitalism and its structuring conditions. Yet such arguments also have some questionable assumptions when it comes to theorising gender and so-called ‘extra-economic’ identities, most noticeably regarding capitalism as indifferent to gender relations. This article delves into such issues by delivering a set of quandaries about various aspects of the social property relations approach and its relevance to wider debates on economy and space. We contend that debates in Marxism Feminism and social reproduction theory therein should be elevated to centre stage in considerations of political economy and economic geography. Consequently, it is possible to dispense with the notion that capitalism is structurally indifferent to gender, which mars the social property relations approach. At the same time, however, there are tensions within Marxism Feminism, not least revolving around questions of value, the role of unpaid labour in the household, and wider theorising on the relationship between ‘market’ conditions and extra-economic relations of ‘state’ power. We explore two major contending routes to what we call a value theory of reproductive labour within Marxism Feminism and conclude that this reconnaissance provides an opportunity to initiate enhanced discussion on future political struggles against capital's requirements.

Keywords 

Marxism Feminism, gender, social property relations, social reproduction theory, value theory

Jörg Nowak 2021 Do Choke Points Provide Workers in Logistics with Power? (Review of International Political Economy)

Nowak, Jörg. 2021. “Do Choke Points Provide Workers in Logistics with Power? A Critique of the Power Resources Approach in Light of the 2018 Truckers’ Strike in Brazil.” Review of International Political Economy. Online First, 29 June.

Abstract

Choke points in transport and logistics have been identified as devices of the power of workers in these sectors. The 11 day long strike of around 400,000 Brazilian truck drivers at more than 750 blockades in May 2018 exercised an effective blockade of the national economy but only led to meagre results. The article asks how this mismatch between the power to block the flow of goods and the lack of power to achieve significant improvements of the truckers’ situation can be explained. It demonstrates that analyses with a focus on the power resources of workers fail to understand the larger dynamics at play. The article proposes a political economy of labour as an analytical device that incorporates global economic relations, the characteristics of social formations and political-ideological relations into its ambit. It claims that in order to understand the economic and political leverage of workers in transport and logistics, one has to look at capital as a broader social relation which includes long term development strategies and material constraints like energy systems and infrastructure.

Jörg Nowak 2021 Brazil (Socialist Project, 23 July)

Nowak, Jörg. 2021. “Brazil: Between Pandemic Incompetence, Institutional War and Growing Polarization.” Socialist Project, 23 July.

Three critical issues recently infused themselves on Brazilian politics. First, a parliamentary commission by the Brazilian Senate to investigate the government’s handling of the pandemic is in the process of uncovering a vast network of corruption linked to the purchase of vaccines with the, at least, indirect involvement of president Jair Bolsonaro.

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Jörg Nowak (2021) Brazil after the Collapse (SP)

Nowak, Jörg. 2021. “Brazil after the Collapse.” Socialist Project. 13 April.

Health experts warned about it for weeks. In early March, the Brazilian health system entered a state of collapse under the weight of a nationwide spike in COVID-19 infections. Hospitals were not able to attend to all patients who needed treatment. By the end of March, all over Brazil, more than 6000 people were waiting for an ICU bed, most of them in overcrowded health centres and emergency wards without the necessary equipment and personnel for treatment.

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Nora Räthzel (2021) “Trade Union Perceptions of the Labour - Nature Relationship” (Environmental Sociology)

Räthzel, Nora. 2021. “Trade Union Perceptions of the Labour - Nature Relationship.” Environmental Sociology. First Published 25 March, pp. 1-12.

ABSTRACT

This paper is based on research with environmentally engaged trade unionists in India. It follows their trajectories into the trade union and explores their environmental engagements. A short presentation of the history of Indian trade unionism, aims to understand its ‘multi-unionism’. Analysing three exemplary life-histories of unionists, their motivations to engage in unions and their relationships to workers and to poor people, three models of perceiving the labour-nature relationship are offered: the container model, nature as a mediator of survival, and the nature-labour alliance. I show that the way in which unionists perceive the labour-nature relationship is shaped by their practices and influences their environmental policies. Furthermore, trade unions who seek alliances with other social movements on equal terms, develop a more comprehensive perception of the labour-nature relationship and thereby the development of more wide-ranging environmental policies. I conclude suggesting that the conditions enabling a more comprehensive perception of the labour-nature relationship could become possible if workers along the value chain could collaborate to learn from each other about their working conditions and the natures they transform.

KEYWORDS: 

Environmental Labour Studieslabour-Nature Allianceworker environmentalismsocial movement unionism

Mark Levinson, with Jenny Chan (2021) "Dreams and Defiance in Foxconn" Dissent (Spring)

Levinson, Mark, with Jenny Chan. 2021. “Dreams and Defiance in Foxconn City: An Interview with Jenny Chan.” Dissent (Spring): 33-40. 

China’s rapid economic growth is built on a factory system that relies on hundreds of millions of exploited workers. In the face of repression, those workers have found creative ways to resist.