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Once hidden behind the veils of entrepreneurship, it is now clear that platforms are reshaping the world of work, and Amazon has been a forerunner in setting the trend.
This book examines two key and contrasting Amazon platforms that differ in how they organize workers: its e-commerce platform and digital labor platform (Mechanical Turk). With access to the people who are working at the heart of these platforms, it explores how different working conditions alienate workers, and how, despite these conditions, workers organize within their political-economic contexts to express their agency in traditional and alternative ways.
Written for social scientists studying and researching the platform economy, this is a timely and important analysis of work and workers on the (digital) shop floor.
“Sarrah Kassem's work opens up new research avenues for scholars interested in studying work organisation within the platform economy, encouraging the use of an intersectionality theory and comparative political economy.” Social Policy Administration
“The strength of this book lies in its central focus on how places - along with their institutions, associations, academic debates, and public opinion mobilization - contribute to transforming work organization within the platform economy.” Social Policy Administration
“A must-read for everyone interested in understanding how workers, and worker struggles, will come to shape the future of the platform economy.” Mark Graham, University of Oxford
"Kassem’s work is exceptional, revealing insights into the power of worker organising in the face of megalithic corporate power. It will stand the test of time." Phoebe V. Moore, University of Essex
“Work and Alienation in the Platform Economy makes a fundamental contribution to understanding of changing work conditions and possibilities for solidarity under those conditions. Sarrah Kassem puts contemporary platform work and workers in a much needed theoretical and historical perspective, and her intersectional analysis on collective worker agency is especially necessary in this moment. This book is an important and impressive achievement.” Veena Dubal, University of California
1. Introduction
Part 1: Examining The World of Work and Workers
2. How to Study Alienation: Marx’s Four Relations
3. How to Grasp Agency: The Power Resources Approach
Part 2: The Birth and Growth of Platforms
4. Historicizing Three Generations of Platforms
5. Contextualizing Amazon’s Growing Empire
Part 3: Workers on the (Digital) Amazon Shop Floor
6. Cog in the Machine: Working the Amazon Circulation Line
7. “I Am Not a Robot”: (Trans)national Labour Organization at the Warehouses
8. “Artificial Artificial Intelligence”: Gigging on Amazon Mechanical Turk
9. Instrumentalizing Technology: Digital Solidarity with and among MTurk Workers
10. Alienation Across Amazon and the Platform Economy
11. The Power of Amazon Workers and Platform Workers
12. Conclusion