Dr. Lina Dencik is Senior Lecturer and Director of the MA in Journalism, Media and Communication at the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies (JOMEC) at Cardiff University, UK. Her research is concerned with the interplay between media developments and social and political change, with a particular focus on globalization and resistance. She is the author of Media and Global Civil Society (2012), Worker Resistance and Media (with Peter Wilkin, 2015) and Critical Perspectives on Social Media and Protest (with Oliver Leistert, 2015). She is currently doing research on the politics of surveillance and the uses and implications of data-driven processes for social and economic justice concerns.
Worker Resistance in the Platform Economy
With the rise of the on-demand economy, organized labor and labor advocates are faced with some significant challenges in protecting workers’ interests. This presentation will explore some of these challenges, drawing on contemporary examples of worker resistance and the interplay between labor organizations and the platform economy. In particular, it will consider the role of unions and different kinds of unionism in responding to platform capitalism, asking not just how they can organize workers, but also for what purpose, and the extent to which the union can in fact be a vehicle to transform society. In so doing, the presentation will also consider platform cooperativism as a possible response by unions, situating it in relation to community unionism, social movement unionism, and syndicalist unionism.
