The Real Spirit of Workers’ Inquiry, or, How to Get 60 Platform Workers Fired

von Harry Parfitt: Mehr Information

Presentation (talking with pictures + video)

  • Lenguage: English
  • Duration: ca. 15 minutes (+ question time)
  • live

What is it about?

In my contribution I will present my experience of conducting a ‘workers’ inquiry’ at a delivery platform in Germany.

I will describe my 15 month long ethnographic research project, which I conducted by working as a ‘rider’ at a delivery platform. The research developed into an organizing project, with the aim of starting a ‘Works Council’ at the company. After months of organizing, we voted in favour of a Works Council. The company responded brutally by firing all 60 workers and closing the Hub for 14 months.

The presentation will explore the contradictions involved in engaging in such a research/organizing project. It will underline that, as we seek to develop radical solidarities, we can never be sure of unintended, and potentially detrimental consequences of our actions. Accepting this, it will nonetheless propose ‘workers inquiry’ as a powerful technique for descending from the realm of hyperreality, back into conflict-ridden reality.

Objectives

  • To inform attendees about the method of workers inquiry and about working conditions in the platform economy.
  • To entertain.
  • To provoke reflection about hierarchies of knowledge, class (etc) and how we can navigate these to live in a more solidary world.

A group of people holding a banner AI-generated content may be incorrect.