Algorithmic Integration and Precarious (Dis)Obedience: On the Co-Constitution of Migration Regime and Workplace Regime in Digitalised Manufacturing and Logistics

Abstract

This article analyses the interaction of the algorithmic workplace regime and the migration regime in manual work in platform logistics and manufacturing in Germany. Based on ethnographic case studies, the article reconstructs how companies integrate migrant workers by using systems of algorithmic work control. These simplify the labour process and direct workers without relying on a certain language. Algorithmic work control, however, does not realise its intended disciplining effects on its own but is dependent on external factors. A precarious residence status is such an external disciplining factor as it can create an implicit alliance of migrant workers with their employers in the hope for permanent residence. Nonetheless, the interaction of the two regimes also produced new forms of solidarity between the workers, which in some cases led to new forms of self-organisation. Thus, workplace regime and migration regime co-constitute each other.