SWIRL – Slash Workers and Industrial ReLations PROJECT DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion “Improving expertise in the field of industrial relations - VP/2018/004” WP3 - TASK 3.2 DETECTION AND ANALYSIS OF RELEVANT PRACTICES IN INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: CASE STUDIES’ REPORT University of Cádiz – UCA Team May 15th, 2021 CONTENTS 1. Introduction 3 2. SWIRL case studies: a brief presentation on common patterns 4 3. Bulgaria 14 3.1. CITUB app 15 3.2. Professional and freelance services FB group 23 4. France 31 4.1. Coopcycle 32 4.2. HappyDev 42 4.3. Les Sons Fédérés 51 5. Germany 66 5.1. IG Metall Ombudstelle (Mediation Office) for Fair 67 Crowd Work 5.2. Liefern am Limit 76 5.3. Smart De 96 6. Italy 96 6.1. Consegne Etiche 97 6.2. Doc Servizi 111 6.3. Fairbnb 125 6.4. Humus 137 7. Spain 144 7.1. Riders x Derechos 145 7.2. Smart Ibérica 169 7.3. Tu Respuesta Sindical ya (TRS)- UGT 188 8. Final remarks 210 9. Annex 1. Case-study content structure 212 2 1. INTRODUCTION One of the SWIRL project aims is to identify and study the most relevant practices of protection and representation of contingent/slash workers, analysing in depth their needs and aspirations, if and how these needs and aspirations are represented and promoted, and barriers found. Within WP3, Task 3.2 centres on the detection and analysis of relevant practices in industrial relations in order to ascertain and assess their level of effectiveness and impact. In order to accomplish this goal, each of the five countries participating in the project had to select and develop three case studies. The selection of the case studies had to meet at least one of the following criteria: a. innovative experience in terms of organization and engagement of the slash worker community; b. diversification of the methods of support, mobilization, advocacy and involvement of workers; c. extension and intensity of the voice and representation actions in terms of the number of workers involved, if limited to a company or within an entire industry context, whether local or national. If a “failed experience” were to be selected, the analysis would include a reconstruction of the explanation of such failure, whether it was deemed to be linked to contingent or structural factors, and what critical elements should strategies have adopted or avoided in the experiences examined. As agreed at the Paris 2020 project meeting, the UCA research team, leader of WP3, designed a content structure guideline to present each of the case study reports (see Annex 1.). The content structure proposed mainly included: - an introduction with the justification of the selected case according to the criteria mentioned above and a brief description of the contingent/ slash-worker (SW) profile the organization represents (online/offline; tasks/projects; qualified/low qualifications, etc.); -the general characteristics and the organizational and decisional structure of the organization created to represent and support contingent/SW and the characteristics of associate workers / members; - the main actions of mobilization (collective resistances) regarding contingent/SW members’ needs, outcomes and effects; - the relations with other industrial relations’ actors such as trade unions, associations and other relevant organizations (role of trade unions- outreaching workers, efforts to organize or self-organize, legal strategies, collective representation, negotiations and conflicts -if applicable) and the relations/connections with similar organizations in other territories; - the future expectations / actions and the conclusions. 3 The case studies’ analysis was based on literature reviews, news dossiers, websites information and, in some cases, on interviews to workers and/or members of the selected organisations or initiatives. The fieldwork was carried out between June 2020 and February 2021 within the Covid-19’s pandemic context with restrictive health- related mobility measures and reduced social contact possibilities and recommendation. Therefore, most of the interviews were carried out online or by phone and digitally recorded. Each partner presented three case studies except for the Bulgarian team that developed two and the Italian team that developed four cases. The UCA team collected and analyzed all the case studies (fifteen in total), trying to identify common patterns and divergences among them. Comparison analysis was not possible since not all of the chosen cases had a comparative common ground; some case studies could be comparable but others not. Moreover, some of the cases lacked some of the requested information due to different reasons (information not available, impossibility of interviewing key informants, etc.). Consequently, this global report offers a general introduction to the fifteen case studies focusing on the common patterns they have such as the type of actors that promoted the initiative, if the initiative had a top-down or a bottom-up approach, the final type of organization that emerged, the objectives and the economic sector in which the organization operates, the trajectory the organization has and if it is a consolidated organization or a more recent / embryonic initiative. After this brief presentation, the case studies reports follow according to a country distribution. Finally, the report offers some final remarks. 2. SWIRL CASE STUDIES: A BRIEF PRESENTATION ON COMMON PATTERNS We must begin our analysis of the different case studies presented in this report by stating what might at this point be considered a self-evident conclusion but that is, nevertheless, worth noting: while slash work is defined as the holding of two or more jobs normally in different sectors and has a clear and seemingly coherent identity when juxtaposed with normative or standard forms of employment, its reality is so multifaceted as far as motivations, situations and experiences are concerned that, so far, no initiatives have been found that specifically deal or try to answer the needs of protection and representation of contingent or slash workers as a category of workers. What we have found instead are very varied initiatives that try to give response to workers’ aspirations or needs but as they pertain to specific sectors of activity or workforce management practices whose nature and characteristics result in contingent or slash work becoming an inherent condition. Thus, for example, we find initiatives that are designed to answer the needs of riders, IT freelancers or workers in the cultural/artistic sectors, whose workers happen to be slash/contingent, but the initiatives 4 circumscribe to the specific sectors, not to the general condition of slash work. This is, in fact, coherent with several of the main conclusions of the global report 3.1 from this same work package, the analysis of slash workers´ labour identities, working and living conditions, social protection and collective representation: “none of our interviewees has expressed specific requirements for social protection or collective representation as slash workers. The protection gaps described and the types of organizations they feel represented by are related to the particular situations or conditions of each of their work activities or employment situations” (p.76) and, furthermore, despite their overall limited involvement in collective representation or mobilization, when slash workers do engage in forms of collective action or organization these tend to be exclusively related to a single job, usually what they consider to be their primary activity (p.77). Along general lines, we find four distinct types of initiatives: cooperative enterprises, initiatives promoted by traditional trade unions, grassroots initiatives to represent specific groups of workers, and innovative or socially conscious business models. We include the following table as a quick reference to guide this section. It presents a summary of the case studies analysed, the country and year of founding of the initiative and a brief description of the type of organization or initiative it entails, as well as the main objectives the initiative aims to achieve. TABLE 1: CASE STUDIES ANALYZED. CASE COUNTRY TYPE OF STUDY ORGANIZATION / MAIN OBJECTIVES YEAR OF INITIATIVE FUNDING Confederation of Independent The mobile App named VOPX KNSB Trade Unions of Bulgaria was created to report irregularities in the Bulgaria (KNSB/CITUB). It is the workplace in order to: largest trade union -Fight the informal economy and reduce confederation in Bulgaria. undeclared work. CITUB App -Increase public awareness of the 2019 problem and encourage citizen participation. Federation of cooperatives of To foster the emerge of new coops by Coopcycle France food delivery cooperatives providing legal and entrepreneurial with a strong anarcho- help. https://coopcy syndicalist/hacker ethic. cle.org/fr/fede ration/ 2016 Cooperative platform for -To set up an alternative model of home Consegne Italy food home delivery. delivery platform: a courier cooperative Etiche Grassroots movement, within the framework of the social and 2020 during synergy between solidarity economy, as an alternative https://conseg first municipalities and informal model to the "big multinationals". netiche.it/ COVID-19 unions. lockdown Self-management cooperative The cooperative acts as direct employer Doc Servizi Italy company that manages the of the workers: directly employing labor and professional musicians and technicians as 5 https://docserv activity of artists and subordinate workers by applying the izi.retedoc.net/