By RICARDO ANTUNES*
In these times of digital work, algorithms, Artificial Intelligence and the like, a new specter that haunts the world of work. It is the specter of uberization
The advent of the new aberration
The world of work is experiencing its most acute phase since the genesis of capitalism. Immersed in a profound “structural crisis”, which can be summarized as follows. The capital system can no longer accumulate without destroying. With the terrestrial borders already under its control, we are entering the era of accumulation of outer space.
A situation that emerged from 1973 onwards, when the destructive tripod – financialization, neoliberalism and capital restructuring – gave impetus for computerization technologies to invade the world of production in industry and, subsequently, in services that were privatized and became exceptional laboratories for the expansion of capital, enhanced by algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, etc.
In the world of work, the global explosion of unemployment, more intense in the Global South. The satanic mill, coined by Karl Polanyi, arrived in the cybernetic age.
In the world of work, we saw the global explosion of unemployment, always more exacerbated in the Global South, worsened in 2008/9 and intensified with the unexpected outbreak of the pandemic.
This reality, in addition to skyrocketing unemployment, has led large corporations to adopt a new leitmotif. With Japanese Toyotism, we saw the unlimited expansion of outsourcing, which brought us intermittent work, legalized in Brazil with Michel Temer's labor counter-reform in 2017, shortly after the coup that deposed Dilma Rousseff.
And that's how we got to uberized work, the kind that is expanding on large digital platforms, articulating, with indiscreet charm, digital and algorithmic inventions, with an unemployed workforce eager for any job. Brazil, with an informality rate of between 30 and 40%, was fertile ground for this endeavor.
But it was still urgent to find a name to give life to this new scam, in order to circumvent labor laws. The recognition of the condition of wage earners, in itself, would require compliance with labor laws which, it is worth remembering, were the result of historical struggles of the working class. In Brazil, the first strike was by the “winners”, black workers who, in 1857 in Salvador, stopped the shipment of goods and people and demanded the end of oppressions that typified slavery. Or the General Strike of 1917, in São Paulo, which paralyzed several categories of the working class, in the fight for basic labor rights.
Well, in the 21st century, in the era of the explosion of digital technologies that could significantly reduce working hours, companies have forged “new” types of work, with one unquestionable condition: the outright refusal to comply with labor laws. Presenting themselves as “service and technology companies”, with the strict objective of obliterating the real condition of wage-earning, uberized work has taken off. This is how the large digital platforms have “redefined” the condition of wage-earning, miraculously converted into entrepreneurship.
An apparent paradox has emerged: in the midst of the era of algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT, Big Data, etc., 21st century capitalism has been recovering past forms of exploitation, expropriation and plundering of labor that were in force in the 18th and 19th centuries. crowdsourcing, for example, so worshipped today, is the digital and algorithmic variant of the old outsourcing, in force during part of the Industrial Revolution, where men, women and children worked in their homes or in spaces outside factories, without any labor legislation. We are now faced with a new specter haunting the world of work: the epidemic of uberization.
But the problem didn't stop there. Another movement made work even more vulnerable: the advent of Industry 4.0, which was created to enhance automation, digitalization, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence. Its main objective: to reduce human labor, introducing more digital machines, robots, ChatGPT, etc., which began to spread throughout the new value-added production chains.
What we are seeing today, with Artificial Intelligence calibrated by financial capital, is already presenting catastrophic results for the working class. If we know that technology flourished together with the first family microcosm, it is imperative to recognize that current technology is being primarily shaped by the capital system, which only thinks about one thing: its valorization. The rest is pure nonsense. Or does anyone know of a large global corporation that has expanded Artificial Intelligence, significantly reduced the working day and even substantially increased workers' wages?
The two ends of the same destructive process are thus tied together in reaction to work: at the same time that Industry 4.0 eliminates a myriad of work activities, large digital platforms incorporate this surplus labor force in conditions that refer to the proto-form of capitalism.
Brazil in the middle of the hurricane
First note: Lula won the October 2022 elections after a tough electoral battle. Behind closed doors, a coup plot was being hatched – the “green and yellow dagger” – hatched by neo-fascists. But Lula was victorious, it is worth reiterating, with the majority vote of the working class.
Among the proposals he defended during his campaign, one is essential: if he wins the election, he would revoke Michel Temer's labor (counter)reform. The one that left us with intermittent work; the prevalence of negotiations over legislation; the dismantling of unions; the strong retraction of the Labor Court; the loss of rights for working women, etc. Not to mention the Outsourcing Law, which eliminated the difference between core and non-core activities and thus allowed for the general liberalization of outsourcing.
Did Lula forget about this proposal?
What can explain PLP 12/2024, presented by the government in April of this year, which, in its article 3, states: “the worker who provides the service of private individual paid passenger transport in a four-wheeled motor vehicle […] will be considered, for labor purposes, a self-employed worker”.
Self-employed? What do you mean? Disregarding serious academic research, carried out without financial resources from the platforms? Ignoring the European Union Directive, recently approved by the 27 member states of the region, which is based on the presumption of an employment relationship and also indicates the imperative need to control algorithms, programmed to exclusively benefit large platforms.
If this PLP is approved, a huge portion of the working class will be excluded from labor legislation. They will not have vacations, no 13th salary, no weekly rest, no FGTS, no rights for women and will even see an (illegal) working day of up to 12 hours per platform allowed. If it is approved, the gate will be thrown wide open... And the bill will be left for Lula's story.
Second note: This year's municipal elections, if they are among the most negative in recent history, at least offered a crucial glimpse by vividly addressing the issue of working hours (6x1 scale). This issue has been distorted even by the dominant left, which bows to the benefits of the false entrepreneurship hoax.
Hence the commendable exception of a young retail worker in Rio de Janeiro, who campaigned for the PSOL party centered on the workday, pointing to the exploitation of labor present in the 6x1 scale. By making this theme the focus of his electoral campaign, vital issues were addressed: exhausting work hours, the intensity of exploitation, which prevents this generation of workers from having a minimum of meaningful life outside of work.
The alternative: the 4x3 journey, four days of hard work and three days of rest, then took off. While others, here and elsewhere, were amazed by the false entrepreneurship. And, by bringing up one of the most vital issues in the world of work, it brought a real daily tragedy of work into the public debate.
Working, working, without the chance to study, socialize, rest, without the possibility of living for a longer period of time outside of the exhaustion of work. This is because the 6x1 workday generally means working five days of eight hours each, plus one day of at least four hours, for a total of 44 hours per week (which is the legal workweek in Brazil). This often turns into 48 hours, especially in the retail, hotel, bar, restaurant, shopping mall, etc. sectors, where fraud is very common and many unions lack social strength or have a more employer-oriented profile. Not to mention the unlimited working hours present in the work of Uber drivers and delivery drivers.
Worse than 6-1, at least for those who like football, is only 7-1.
One last note: In these times of digital work, algorithms, artificial intelligence and the like, a new specter is emerging that is haunting the world of work. It is the specter of uberization. How can we prevent this tragedy?
This is the greatest challenge for the working class. And there is a new and often overlooked element in the global social scenario: while the working class is becoming increasingly heterogeneous in its labor mix, there is also a strong homogenization of its working conditions, since the structural precariousness of work is a global trend, reducing to some extent the differences between North and South. Just think of global immigrant labor.
Therefore, a source of new actions and struggles for the working class, an essential social base for reinventing a new way of life.
*Ricardo Antunes is a full professor of sociology at Unicamp. Author, among other books, of The meanings of work (boitempo). [https://amzn.to/3DNNGPO]
Extended version of article published in the journal capital letter, issue 1343, December 26, 2024.
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