Labour Conflicts in the Digital Age‐A Comparative PerspectiveBy Donatella della Porta, Riccardo Emilio Chesta and Lorenzo Cini. ISBN: 978‐1529228243. Price £80
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| Author | Giuseppe Simone |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12769 |
986 BOOK REVIEWS
go beyond the Chilean context and are relevant to the wider post-industrial society where
worker−employer−government relations are undergoing qualitative changes.
ORCID
Yao -Tai L i https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4897-3616
DOI: 10.1111/b jir.12769
Labour Conflicts in the Digital Age-A Comparative Perspective
By Donatella della Porta, Riccardo Emilio Chesta and Lorenzo Cini. ISBN:
978-1529228243. Price £80
Giuseppe Simone
Freelance Researcher
Correspondence
Giuseppe Simone, Freelance Researcher.
Email: giuseppe.simone91@gmail.com
The book discusses labour conflicts in the digital age by focusing on the rise of worker mobiliza-
tions in innovative technological sectors. This work emphasizes the formation of a new ‘digital
working class’ shaped by platform economy and does so by challenging the mainstream narrative
in which digital technologies temper class struggle and labour conflict by allowing for the creation
of new and widespread forms of self-entrepreneurship and autonomous work.
According to the authors, the wave of capital accumulation triggered by digitalization needs to
be understood as a structural transformation of the world economy. The platform economy fosters
a deeper fragmentation of the global value chains, the widespread increase in gig and atypical jobs
in the peripherical areas, and of precarious and flexible work conditions in advanced economies.
Platform capitalism has reshaped the labour process by enhancing parcelization, digital control
and surveillance of workers.
The main argument of the book is the need to overcome the traditional approach in labour and
movement studies in order to understand labour conflict in the platform economy. Particularly,
the theoretical framework proposes a bridge across New Social Movement (NSM) theory, Indus-
trial Relations (IR) literature and labour study approaches to analyse the recent wave of digital
workers’ mobilization.
The NSM and the neo-Marxist approach are used by authors to analyse the new configuration
of work by looking at the power relationship of knowledge control and value extraction. In the
digital economy, platforms are not only a fundamental tool to reorganize the labour process to
maximize control over workers and enhance their productivity, but also a primary source of value
extraction in terms of data. The increasing extensive use of digital technologies (ICTs)specifically
allows for network-based company structures in which value extraction absorbs the ‘everyday
sphere of communication, production, and consumption (p. 43)’.
In terms of industrial relations, only a few heterodox studies from IR literatureconsider union-
ism outside the traditional and institutionalized forms. Conversely,social movement literature has
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