‘Just because you don't see your boss, doesn't mean you don't have a boss’: Covid-19 and Gig Worker Strikes across Latin America

20 | International Union Rights | 27/3 FOCUS | IMPACTS OF COVID-19 ON WORK AND THE CHALLENGE FOR UNION RIGHTS ‘Justbecauseyoudon’tseeyourboss, doesn’tmeanyoudon’thaveaboss’:Covid19 and Gig Worker Strikes across Latin America Latin America has been hit hard by Covid-19. On 22 September, the region had reported more than 8.8 million cases, and 325,000 deaths (Horton, 2020). As daily case numbers began to fall in Europe from May onwards, they continued to surge in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and across the region. So far, Brazil has recorded the third highest number of cases in the world, 4.5 million as at September, and more than 140,000 people have lost their lives. Looking beyond the headline numbers, it is clear that the region’s high levels of inequality have shaped the course and the outcomes of its pandemic experience. Latin America includes some of the most unequal countries in the world, and these existing inequalities inevitably put the greatest pressure on those on the margins of the labour market. ‘Gig’ (or ‘platform’) workers, who perform piece-rate on-demand tasks through apps, have been particularly hard hit. Many gig workers lost their incomes overnight as a result of lockdowns, while others risk heightened exposure to the virus in order to keep earning. While the images of mass grave sites dominated news emanating from Latin America in May, weeks later another story of global significance was emerging - large, coordinated strikes by gig economy workers across the region. As early as April, workers had begun striking against dangerous working conditions and low pay during the pandemic. Protests intensified in July, with large-scale strikes on July 1 spanning ten Brazilian cities, alongside other countries, including Argentina, Ecuador, Chile and Mexico. Further international strikes occurred in August. The strikers were food delivery couriers, working for Uber Eats, Rappi, iFood, Glovo and other platforms. These strikes are particularly historic, in that they represent the first real example of an international, sector-wide, strike movement in the gig economy. They have been catalysed by the conditions of the pandemic for a number of reasons. Covid-19 has further eroded gig workers’ already tenuous financial and physical security, whilst also demonstrating the essential nature of the work they perform. These conditions highlight the core issue of the misclassification of platform workers as independent contractors without access to employment rights or benefits. As the struggle faced by gig workers in Latin America has only intensified, the pandemic has provided the impetus and platform for thousands to raise their voices against underlying structural injustices. In this article, we trace the courier strikes across Latin America, with evidence from Brazil, Chile and Ecuador from April to August. These case studies have been compiled by researchers in the Fairwork network, a multi-national collaborative research project that tracks labour conditions in the gig economy, and encourages labour platforms to meet defined standards of fair work in the absence of regulation (Graham et. al., 2020). Covid-19 and Worker Strikes Across Latin America Histories of profound social inequality mean precarious working conditions are already normalised in many Latin American countries, however so are legacies of labour resistance. In Brazil, many have worked in insecure jobs, as couriers, cleaners and drivers, for a long time before the advent of digital labour platforms. Nevertheless recent years have witnessed the further erosion of public provision of social security, education, health, and labour rights, paving the way for the gig economy model of algorithmically-managed insecure work to become widespread. As President Jair Bolsonaro pronounced early in his term; ‘workers will have to choose between more rights or more jobs’ (in Araujo & Murakawa, 2020). Covid-19 has further heightened the precarity faced by gig workers (Fairwork, 2020). In the gig economy, workers disproportionately bear both the risks, and the costs associated with the labour process (Fredman et. al., 2020). For delivery drivers, the risk of contracting the virus is now added to the everpresent risk of road accidents. Additionally, restaurant closures have increased the risk of non-payment, and deactivation. At the centre of this issue is the practice of classifying workers as independent contractors. Because gig workers are not classified as...