University of Amsterdam Graduate School of Social Sciences Comparative Labour and Organisation Studies Master Thesis: TRADE UNION RESPONSES TOWARDS PLATFORM CAPITALISM IN THE NETHERLANDS Candidate: Petar Marčeta Student number 11213000 Supervisor: Dr. Johan J. De Deken Second reader: Prof. Dr. Maarten Keune Amsterdam, July 2018 Trade union responses towards platform capitalism in the Netherlands Abstract This thesis sets out to investigate some of the issues arising from the expansion of platform capitalism, approaching it from a critical, industrial relations perspective. Going beyond misleading conceptualisations such as the “sharing” or “collaborative” economy, it examines how the changes brought about by platforms are imbedded in the wider context of contemporary capitalist political economy, with prevailing trends towards flexibilisation and labour market recommodification. This research aims to find out how the trade unions in the Netherlands are currently shaping their strategies in response to these developments. These questions are answered, first by identifying and classifying union responses through frameworks developed for researching trade union responses to non-standard labour and secondly by discussing several potential explanations for these responses. The thesis claims that one of the main issues of platform capitalism from the perspective of trade unions is the misclassification of workers as self-employed persons. Consequently, the main instrument used by trade unions at this moment is litigation, with organising and media campaigning the preferred options for the future. Finally, the thesis argues that the most probable explanations of trade union strategies in response to platform capitalism are those that take into account the context of flexibilisation and deterioration of labour market standards as well as changing trade union ideologies. Key words: platform capitalism, sharing economy, flexibilisation, trade unions, the Netherlands. 2 Trade union responses towards platform capitalism in the Netherlands Acknowledgments I would like to thank all anonymous participants who agreed to be interviewed and helped reach out to respondents. I would like to express my gratitude towards my supervisor Johan De Deken for his patient guidance and supervision throughout the master’s program and the thesis writing process. I would also like to thank my second reader Maarten Keune for his time and useful comments and suggestions. Further, I would like to thank all the participants of the thesis seminar group: Júlia Ontañón Benguerel, Renée Paula Horster, Vincent Scuric and the remaining two members of the (in)famous Troika, Tom van de Haar and Fabio Ferrari, as well as fellow students and friends Alison Jones, Simone Schneider, Ruth Eyles, Sarah Vandenbroucke, Katarina Đorđević for their invaluable insights, suggestions, comments, critiques, and never-ending lunch break discussions. Last but not least, I wish to thank my parents, sister, the rest of my family and friends back home for their continuous and unconditional support. I dedicate this thesis to those who inspire me the most – the invisible, powerless and unrecognised men and women who keep this world running, the weak whose names we won’t find in history text books. 3 Trade union responses towards platform capitalism in the Netherlands Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 6 1. Platform capitalism and its embeddedness ........................................................................ 9 1.1. Defining platform capitalism ...................................................................................... 9 1.2. Types of platforms .................................................................................................... 13 1.3. The emergence of platforms ...................................................................................... 14 2. Labour under platform capitalism .................................................................................... 16 2.1. Gig work .................................................................................................................... 16 2.2. Cloud work ................................................................................................................ 18 2.3. Conceptualising labour under platform capitalism ................................................... 18 2.4. Labour relations and collective bargaining in platform capitalism ........................... 20 2.4.1. Worker (mis)classification ................................................................................. 20 2.4.2. Mystifying the role of the employer .................................................................. 22 2.4.3. Practical difficulties ........................................................................................... 22 3. Trade unions and flexible labour ..................................................................................... 25 3.1. Trade union challenges.............................................................................................. 25 3.2. Trade union responses ............................................................................................... 26 3.2.1. Institutional and regulatory factors .................................................................... 26 3.2.2. Dualization argument (and counter-argument) .................................................. 28 3.2.3. Union ideology and identity............................................................................... 29 3.2.4. Classifying trade union responses ...................................................................... 30 4. Research framework ........................................................................................................ 32 4.1. Union responses and potential explanations ............................................................. 32 4.2. Instruments ................................................................................................................ 33 4.3. Research design ......................................................................................................... 34 5. Trade union responses...................................................................................................... 36 5.1. Unions perception of platform capitalism ................................................................. 36 4 Trade union responses towards platform capitalism in the Netherlands 5.2. Instruments used ........................................................................................................ 38 5.2.1. Media Campaigns .............................................................................................. 38 5.2.2. Litigation ............................................................................................................ 39 5.2.3. Organising .......................................................................................................... 40 5.2.4. Influencing regulation ........................................................................................ 42 5.2.5. Collective bargaining ......................................................................................... 43 6. Explaining trade union responses .................................................................................... 44 6.1. Dualization hypothesis .............................................................................................. 44 6.2. Flexibilisation and deterioration of the labour market hypothesis ............................ 44 6.3. Union identity hypothesis.......................................................................................... 45 6.4. Membership hypothesis............................................................................................. 47 7. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 48 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................ 53 Annexes.................................................................................................................................... 59 Interview 1 ........................................................................................................................... 59 Interview 2 ........................................................................................................................... 69 Interview 3 ........................................................................................................................... 79 5 Trade union responses towards platform capitalism in the Netherlands Introduction It is a common place in history of capitalism that technological innovations spur speculations about fundamental changes the world of labour, or even capitalism itself, will suffer. The latest impulse for such claims comes from the rise of platforms – business models which employ internet and data as a basis for coordination of production. Some have gone as far as claiming that platforms will entail an “end of employment” (Sundarayan, 2016), while others claim, in a more critical manner, that platforms open the horizons for intensive exploitation and precariousness of those selling their labour power under these terms (Scholz, 2016, Srnicek, 2016, Huws, 2014). A particular area of interest