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Antonio Aloisi, born in 1989, is a PhD candidate in Business and Social Law at Bocconi University, in Milan. His thesis aims at providing a theoretical analysis of how courts deal with economic reasons for dismissal and an impact assessment of recent flexicurity policies across Europe.
He graduated in Law from Bocconi University (2013), with a dissertation on decentralized collective bargaining and the FIAT vs Italian trade unions case, supervised by Professor Stefano Liebman. His main research interests are Labor Law, Industrial Relations and Law of Business and Commerce. His current research activity focuses particularly on casual forms of work, including on-call contracts, crowd work, work in the “gig-economy” and “on-demand” work.
Since February 2014, he has joined the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR) as a member of the Head of Cabinet’s office, where he has mainly worked on a long-term vision and policy framework for fundamental school reforms in Italy.
New organizational infrastructures as effective advocates for decent work in the on-demand economy
After analysing causes and effects of the so-called “Uber-ization” of activism (i.e. activism by platform owners), Antonio will discuss strategies for sincere “digital organizing”. It is highly debatable if gig-workers could unionize, especially if they are labelled as contractors.
Since networks are considered the secret weapon of platforms, is there room for building new ones between cloud-workers and gain momentum for collective action? As the “Fight-For-15” campaign has left a promising legacy, the next challenge could consist in strengthening ties between casual workers and putting pressure on platforms in order to improve participation agreements to the benefit of vulnerable workforce.
To this purpose, this presentation will give particular attention to potential sources of worker organisation (from virtual spaces like blogs and forums, to app-based drivers associations or worker-owned co-op). These tools could also represent a way to reduce information asymmetries, compare gig-providers, join forces and therefore increase bargaining power.
In a nutshell, new organizational and social infrastructures will appear (probably in the form of “movements of interests” focused on sectorial issues) and become an effective advocate for decent work in the on-demand economy.