Building labour power in the platform economy

This study undertakes a comparative analysis of delivery workers’ struggles in Norway and Germany. Through the theoretical lens of the power resources approach, we analyse how delivery workers in Berlin and Oslo combine associational, structural, institutional, coalitional and discursive power resources, responding to different institutionalised frameworks of industrial relations.

We make three contributions to debates on worker agency and resistance in the platform economy.

• First, we show that delivery workers need to actively combine different power resources to overcome barriers to organising and exercising structural power, resulting from platforms’ model of work organisation.
• Second, we highlight the role of institutional contexts in shaping workers’ collective organising strategies.
• Finally, our analysis stresses that the power resources that food delivery workers have built are often contested and circumvented by counter-practices from the platform companies.