Om avhandlingen (på engelska):
What happens when companies that use apps and algorithms to manage a pool of workers with non-standard work arrangements enter a well-organised labour market? In this thesis, I analyse Foodora Norway as a critical case, to better understand how actors (companies, workers and unions) in a segment of the Norwegian labour market with weak union organising and low collective agreement coverage contest and shape new forms of work. Platform companies like Foodora have emerged on the margins of the Nordic labour market model, where non-standard forms of work are widespread and collective representation is weak, in an otherwise well-regulated labour market. The companies’ use of self-employed workers, combined with a potential for control through apps and algorithms, challenge labour rights and the collective bargaining framework of the Norwegian labour market model. My research has two aims: to (a) empirically explore the development of app-based food and grocery delivery in Norway and (b) investigate the evolving power relations and implications for working conditions and labour relations when platform companies like Foodora enter a well-regulated labour market like that in Norway. Building on qualitative methods, interviews, document analysis and observation, my decade-long research project answers the following questions: How do platform companies, workers and trade unions’ access to and use of power resources shape working conditions in Norwegian app-based food and grocery delivery? How do platform companies change their strategies in response to worker mobilisation and market competition, and what are the implications for labour relations? I understand app-based food and grocery delivery as an emerging field or socially constructed arena lacking clear norms and regulations, where the actors – companies, workers and unions – with opposing views and conflicts of interest try to shape the field to their advantage. Power resources are used by the actors to mobilise and shape the field – e.g., organising collectively, using labour laws and collective bargaining frameworks, building robust organisations, influencing public opinion and governments and building alliances with other actors. The thesis also includes an analysis of the situation of app-based delivery workers in Germany and France. These two labour markets are distinct from that of Norway, but there are some similarities involving instances of bottom-up mobilisation among delivery workers, which can help us to better understand the Norwegian case. The thesis builds on four papers. In paper I, I investigate how platform companies influence working conditions and pay, and I develop a typology of employment models emerging in Norway. In papers II and III, my colleagues and I take a worker perspective on power resources and explore how workers in Norway, Germany and France become collective actors, and how they build, use and combine power resources to improve working conditions and pay. In paper IV, using power as a relational concept by exploring the power resources of both workers and companies, I analyse (a) the emerging field of app-based food and grocery delivery in Norway with a focus on the interaction between the field and the broader structure of the Norwegian labour market model and (b) how power relations evolve among the actors and how this affects working conditions and pay. My findings offer several contributions. First, by combining the concept of an emerging field with power resource and mobilisation theory, I show how the actors use power resources strategically to shape the employment models of platform companies. Second, my research provides insights into how non-standard workers are mobilised in an emerging field, focusing on strategies that workers and unions use to build and maintain power resources. In particular, I show how combining different power resources is crucial, and that workers need to develop the capabilities to effectively use them. This is especially the case when companies consistently challenge the power resources of workers. Third, I offer theoretical reflections on the (non-)settlement of fields in relation to app-based food delivery. This field’s inherent characteristic seems to be its fluidity, with companies constantly changing their models to evade regulations. For capital, a fluid field is advantageous, as it enables continual adjustments to employment models and algorithmic management, helping companies to evade regulations. For the workers, it appears that a sector-level agreement and stronger enforcement of regulations could be central in protecting them from negative consequences of purely market-based relationships. However, the fluidity of the field may also allow app-based food and grocery delivery to remain in a state of continuous change (i.e., ‘messy’) on the margins of the Norwegian labour market model.
