Bearing the Unbearable: Double Controls, Disguised Precarity of North American Laborers and China-based Digital Platforms

• In Event: 50412 - Informal and Unregulated Economies

Abstract

This paper examines controls over informal laborers by digital platforms and states as well as the precarity of platform laborers. Adopting a multi-level approach, we put the spotlight on how states, platforms and laborers interact with each other when states and platforms impose their controls over overseas laborers. Drawing on 47 in-depth interviews, surveys and online data collected during 2018-2023 on ABCKID (pseudonym), a large China-based platform employing North American laborers, we unpack how state control directly affected the lives of laborers and indirectly impacted platform work through strengthening platform control over laborers. Our findings show that the state is not necessarily an ally with platform laborers, but could be a major source of control over these laborers. We also document how the platform took advantage of laborers’ dependency on the platform and collaborated them to get around state controls. Furthermore, we introduce the concept of disguised precarity and illustrate how laborers’ precarity became more disguised as double controls unfolded. We argue that double controls by platforms and the states can exacerbate platform laborers’ precarity even though their precarity may seem to be tolerable. We discuss the implications of our findings for the transnational role of the Chinese state in governing platforms, the globalization of service work and global inequality.

Authors

• Le Lin, University of Hawaii at Manoa

• Grace Chun Guo