Uber drivers are subject to “false autonomy” over their work, according to academics.

New research from UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business Business School found that drivers are often promised sole autonomy over their work, but billion-dollar corporations use “opaque algorithmic systems” that manage, monitor and discipline them.

The research, led by Emma McDaid, assistant professor of accountancy at UCD Smurfit School and Clinton Free, professor of accountancy at University of Sydney Business School, found that the platform that Uber drivers must use dictates their pay, the work they are assigned, their performance evaluation and when they can work.

Because many drivers seek work with Uber to have greater control or flexibility over their hours, they can become frustrated and undervalued because their autonomy is reduced.

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This frustration has been evidenced in online forums where drivers discuss these issues, sharing tricks and solutions to “overpower the algorithm”, the researchers said.

Their research was conducted via interviews and a study of the online forums used by drivers. They found that discussing the challenges led to a greater sense of “we-ness” that creates solidarity in their workforce.

Subsequently, the drivers form different types of resistance strategies, both individual and collective, with storytelling encouraging and justifying these strategies, they found.

Some of the strategies include manipulating surge pricing to maximise earnings by working in high-demand periods, or “hacking” the algorithmic controls around trip destinations.

The researchers also pointed to formal collective action such as lobbying transport authorities. Uber drivers famously won a Supreme Court action ruling that they are workers, rather than self-employed, so entitled to basic employment rights such as paid holiday and rest breaks.

Online communities of drivers are helping to drive worker resistance, the academics found, with storytelling encouraging workers to come together.

The researchers found a “serious disconnect” between the autonomy promised to workers and the reality of their everyday work.

Assistant professor Emma McDaid, said: “These insights can support the current analysis of labour-management relations in settings where algorithms are used to assess work and output (within the gig-economy and beyond it), but they also provide a basis to question a future where generative AI will likely add to the opacity, and the effects of algorithmic governance.”

In January, 12 organisations including the TUC and Amnesty international wrote an open letter to food delivery platforms Deliveroo, Just Eat Takeaway and Uber Eats urging them to provide greater transparency on how their apps manage couriers’ work processes and pay.

 

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