„I don‟t know what awaits me.‟ Understanding Uncertainty and Spatiotemporal Flexibility among Platform-based Food Delivery Couriers in Romania

Abstract

Drawing from a qualitative study of food delivery platform labour and critical labour theory on the platformisation of work, this article explores how workers experience flexible time resources in Romania and how algorithmic management controls the labour process of delivery through autonomy and variation. In the context of an emerging platform economy in everyday life in Romania, our findings from in-depth interviews with couriers illustrate how delivery workers feel pressured to find adaptive methods to manage the time constraints of their workplace. By framing solutions for gaining a weekly cash income, this article explains how spatiotemporal flexibility and fast delivery are mediated by the excellence scores of the apps’ algorithmic management. The business model of delivery platforms generates changes in the workers’ norms of work and increases the uncertainty when they interact with the platforms’ tools. This study explains workers’ strategies in precarious working situations by dividing our findings into a thematic coding analysis that describes experiences in food delivery: flexibility and excellence.