Organising in the “digital wild west”: Can strategic bottlenecks help prevent a race to the bottom for online workers?

For decades, large firms have been outsourcing and offshoring jobs. Work flowed from developed economies to developing ones, where wages were lower and regulations were of a lighter touch. Europeans and North Americans lost jobs, and Asians, South Americans, and… Continue Reading

Digital Transformations of Work

The conference will explore issues such as the degree to which information technology is transforming capitalism and opening up new means of exploitation, whether the traditional regulation of working time, structured around a stable 9-5 5-day week, is being fractured;… Continue Reading

Tracing employment rights through online labour markets

Online labour markets represent a rapidly growing feature of the world of work. Dozens of international online market places exist for the buying and selling of labour. The number of hours worked on oDesk.com (now known as Upwork), a leading… Continue Reading

Can virtual workers strike? Book chapter on identity and collective action in microwork

I’ve posted online a pre-print version of my upcoming chapter in Space, place and global digital work, edited by Jörg Flecker (Palgrave-Macmillan 2016). The chapter is titled Algorithms That Divide and Unite: Delocalization, Identity, and Collective Action in ‘Microwork’. I… Continue Reading

New job working with the Geonet team at the Oxford Internet Institute: ‘Researcher in ICTs, Geography and Development’

We are now hiring a researcher to work with us to investigate low-wage digital work being carried out in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Oxford Internet Institute is a leading centre for research into individual, collective and institutional behaviour on the Internet.… Continue Reading