Coping with precarity during COVID-19: A study of platform work in Poland

Abstract

This article explores how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected platform workers' work and life experiences in Poland and how they have responded. These workers have been exposed to substantial fluctuations in demand during the pandemic, magnifying the distortions existing in an unregulated asymmetrical employment relationship that diverges from the standard employment relationship. Findings illustrate how workers have attempted to reduce the disruptions underpinning this relationship by adopting different strategies, which resemble Hirschman's typology of exit, voice and loyalty. The authors explain workers' choice of strategy by different levels of access to resources and institutional capabilities, as well as by variations in workers' orientations.