Micro-Fragmenting Gig Workers: Solidarity Under Tensions

The gig worker group is highly heterogeneous due to low entry barriers and platforms' preference for recruiting non-committed workers. My study explores the 'micro-fragmentation' among gig workers—varied by workers’ economic dependence, platform loyalty, and means of labor—and its impact on worker solidarity. Through 21 months of comparative ethnography in Seoul and Toronto, I examine how micro-fragmentation weakens solidarity conditioned by commonalities, by creating complex layers of heterogeneity among workers. Baemin, Seoul's largest food delivery company, implemented a two-track system distinguishing full-time motorbike 'riders' from part-time 'connectors' (couriers using bikes, e-bikes, kickboards, cars, or walking) and penalized and rewarded them differently. In Toronto, before Foodora exited the Canadian market, they recruited both bicycle couriers downtown and car couriers in the suburbs, which created boundaries among workers due to differing conditions. This micro-fragmentation generated tensions among gig workers, including unionized workers. Despite ongoing tensions, gig worker unions strive to organize these diverse groups into an industrial union, promoting collective class consciousness and addressing each group's specific demands. I highlight the complex heterogeneity among gig workers as a result of platforms' control regimes to undermine worker solidarity and the challenges unions face in organizing highly heterogeneous workers.