The Fairwork Project: Promoting Good Labor Practices in the Digital Platform Economy through Action Research

In this chapter – from the edited volume Collaborative Research in the Datafied Society, edited by Mirko Tobias Schäfer, Karin van Es, and Tracey Lauriault – authors Tatiana López, Funda Ustek Spilda, Patrick Feuerstein, Fabian Ferrari, and Mark Graham, introduce the Fairwork project and provide critical insights into its engagement with platforms as an action research strategy.

Though the digital platform economy in some contexts has created new employment opportunities, work in the platform economy has been widely criticized for its often precarious and exploitative character. One central mechanism through which digital platforms construct and conceal exploitative employment relations are information asymmetries among platforms, workers, and consumers. These information asymmetries are created through, among other things, a lack of transparency on how platforms allocate work, calculate payments, and use customer reviews for incentive structures and other rating-based work outcomes. Against this backdrop, the Fairwork project conducts action research to tackle these information asymmetries.

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