UNDERSTANDING PLATFORM WORK: class composition and migration in the case of brazilian delivery workers in the United Kingdom

Abstract

This paper examines how migration affects the class composition of Brazilian delivery workers in the United Kingdom. Although some studies indicate that migration plays an important role in platform work in the Global North, little is known about the specific ways in which it occurs. The study seeks to show how migration is a constitutive aspect of this sector in the Global North and how the migrant status generates shared experiences and communities, crisscrossing all aspects of said industry, from work organization to life experiences, and even collective forms of resistance and organization. To do so, it draws on the Marxist theory of class composition and on migration to understand the formation of this new working class sector and its processes of struggle and resistance. Data were collected from two long-term ethnographic studies with the collective organization of delivery workers in London, and 13 in-depth interviews.