Abstract
Online labour markets (OLMs) are new global workplaces that represent the latest wave of offshoring. Indians have a strong presence on OLMs, being freelancers on both international and national platforms, adding to the country’s large and growing informal workforce. Through a critical hermeneutic phenomenological approach, this chapter examines the experiences of Indian freelancers on Upwork using the lens of decent work. The findings underscore that though full-time freelancers report some sense of empowerment in terms of income, quality of life, long-term investments and upward mobility, career development, work-life balance, link with the West and platform checks and facilities, there are decent work deficits across the four hallmarks of full and productive employment, rights at work ensuring human dignity, social protection and social dialogue. Effective pursuit of the decent work agenda on OLMs calls for counterhegemonic initiatives through global social movement unionism that reconciles labour differences across the North-South divide.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Upwork is a “spot” OLM where clients and freelancers, interacting based on profiles, job posts and bids, trade at agreed prices for certain durations of time (Horton 2010). Upwork was formed in May 2015 as the merger of Elance-oDesk. This latter entity, launched in December 2013, combined the two independent crowdsourced work platforms of Elance and oDesk (Empson 2013). Whereas the 2015 merger arose as Elance-oDesk realized that their impact would be even greater if they built a single site, the 2013 combination involved linking resources and benefitting from investments in technology in a bid to achieve higher quality results and accelerated growth and scale, though the two platforms operated as separate services with no fall-out on clients and freelancers (Swart 2013). Following the creation of Upwork, the oDesk platform remained the foundation, retaining the best of both legacies and adding new innovations. Upwork has 9 million registered freelancers and 4 million registered clients, with 3 billion jobs posted annually and US$ 1 billion worth of work done annually (Upwork 2015).
- 2.
The case studies, drawn from a larger inquiry of Indian contractors engaged in crowdsourced paid work on Upwork (D’Cruz and Noronha 2016), have been selected to represent the four prototypes of full-timers evident in the sample such that together they optimize its theoretical generalizability (Thompson 1999). Based on data gathered via van Manen’s (1998) hermeneutic phenomenology, the lived experiences of the four participants vis-à-vis the site are first described ideographically. Then, taking up the lens of critical theory (Scherer 2011), participants’ narratives are subjected to ideology-critique nomothetically to highlight the extent of their empowerment. Following Comstock (1982), we adopt a hybrid approach synergizing interpretivism with critical theory, based on the well-recognized position that critical theory involves combining a phenomenological stance with social critique and praxis (Prasad 2005).
It may be noted that the scope of the present chapter is limited to full-timers though D’Cruz and Noronha’s (2016) study also covered part-timers. That part-timers felt unable to shift to full-time engagement on the platform based on their experiences of erratic work and income is indicative of the spectrum of freelancers’ experiences on OLMs.
References
Acker, J. (2006). Class questions, feminist answers. Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield.
Agrawal, A. K., Lacetera, N., & Lyons, E. (2013). Does information help or hinder job applicants from less developed countries in online markets? (Working Paper No. 18720). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Aloisi, A. (2015). The rising of on-demand work: A case study research on a set of online platforms and apps. Paper presented at the 4th ILO Conference on Regulating for Decent Work, 8–10 July, Geneva, Switzerland.
Barchiesi, F. (2012). Imagining the patriotic worker: The idea of ‘decent work’ in the ANC’s political discourse. In A. Lissoni, J. Soske, N. Erlank, N. Nieftagodien, & O. Badsha (Eds.), One hundred years of the ANC: Debating liberation histories today. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.
Barrientos, S. (2007). Gender, codes of conduct and labour standards in global production systems. In I. Van Staveren, D. Elson, & N. Cagatay (Eds.), The feminist economics of trade. London: Routledge.
Beerepoot, N., & Lambregts, B. (2015). Competition in online job marketplaces: Towards a global labour market for outsourcing services? Global Networks, 15(2), 236–255.
Bergvall-Kåreborn, B., & Howcroft, D. (2014). Amazon Mechanical Turk and the commodification of labour. New Technology, Work and Employment, 29(3), 213–223.
Brophy, E., & De Peuter, G. (2007). Immaterial labour, precarity and recomposition. In C. McKercher & V. Mosco (Eds.), Knowledge workers in the information society (pp. 177–191). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Caraway, B. (2010). Online labour markets: An inquiry into oDesk providers. Work Organization, Labour and Globalization, 4(2), 111–125.
Chan, J., & Wang, J. (2014). Hiring biases in online labour markets: The case of gender stereotyping. Paper presented at the 35 th International Conference on Information Systems, 14–17 December, Auckland, New Zealand.
Cohen, N. S. (2015). Entrepreneurial journalism and the precarious state of media work. South Atlantic Quarterly, 114(3), 513–533.
Comstock, D. (1982). A method for critical research. In E. Bredo & W. Feinberg (Eds.), Knowledge and values in social and educational research (pp. 370–390). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
D’Cruz, P., & Noronha, E. (2016). Positives outweighing negatives: The experiences of Indian crowdsourced workers. Work Organization, Labour and Globalization., 10(1), 44-63
De Stefano, V. M. (2015). The rise of the ‘Just-in-Time’ workforce. Paper presented at the 4th ILO Conference on Regulating for Decent Work, 8–10 July, Geneva, Switzerland.
Elance. (2013). Global online employment report, 2013. Retrieved August 20, 2015, from https://www.elance.com/q/online-employment-report.
Elias, J. (2007). Women workers and labour standards: The problem of ‘human rights’. Review of International Studies, 33(1), 45–57.
Empson, R. (2013). Everything you wanted to know about the giant Elance, oDesk merger and ensuing backlash (but were afraid to ask). Retrieved May 13, 2015, from http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/22/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-the-giant-elance-odesk-merger-ensuing-backlash-but-were-afraid-to-ask/.
Felstiner, A. (2011). Working the crowd: Employment and labour law in the crowdsourcing industry. Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labour Law, 32(1), 143–203.
Folkman, S. (1984). Personal control and stress and coping processes: A theoretical analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46(4), 839–852.
Freeman, R. (2008). The new global labour market. Focus, 26(1), 1–6.
Friedman, T. (2005). The world is flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Gefen, D., & Carmel, E. (2008). Is the world really flat? A look at offshoring at an online programming marketplace. MIS Quarterly, 32(2), 367–384.
Ghai, D. (2003). Decent work: Concept and indicators. International Labour Review, 142(2), 113–145.
Green, A., De Hoyos, M., Barnes, S. A., Baldauf, A., & Behle, H. (2014). Exploratory research on Internet-enabled work exchanges and employability. Seville: European Commission.
Guérin, I., Michiels, S., Ponnarasu, S., & Venkatasubramanian, G. (2012). Ambiguities and paradoxes of the decent work deficit: Bonded migrants in Tamil Nadu. Global Labour Journal, 3(1), 118–142.
Hauf, F. (2015). The paradoxes of decent work in context: A cultural political economy perspective. Global Labour Journal, 6(2), 138–155.
Hennebert, M. A., & Bourque, R. (2011). The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC): Insights from the Second World Congress. Global Labour Journal, 2(2), 154–159.
Holtgrewe, U. (2014). New New Technologies: The future and the present of work in information and communication technology. New Technology, Work and Employment, 29(1), 9–24.
Horton, J. J. (2010). Online labour markets. In A. Saberi (Ed.), WINE 2010, LNCS 6484 (pp. 515–522). Heidelberg: Springer.
Huws, U. (2013). Working online, living offline: Labour in the internet age. Work Organization, Labour and Globalization, 7(1), 1–11.
ILER. (2014). Workers in the era of globalization. New Delhi: IHD and Academic Foundation.
ILO. (1999). Decent work: Report of the Director-General to the International Labour Conference. Retrieved February 20, 2015, from http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc87/rep-i.htm.
ILO. (2011). Global employment trends. Geneva: ILO. Retrieved February 10, 2016, from http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—dgreports/—dcomm/—publ/documents/publication/wcms_150440.pdf.
Irani, L. C., & Silberman, M. (2013). Turkopticon: Interrupting worker invisibility in Amazon Mechanical Turk. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 611–620).
Kabeer, N. (2004). Globalization, labour standards, and women’s rights: Dilemmas of collective (in)action in an interdependent world. Feminist Economics, 10(1), 3–35.
Kantor, P., Rani, U., & Unni, J. (2006). Decent work deficits in informal economy: Case of Surat. Economic and Political Weekly, 41(21), 2089–2097.
Keat, R. (1991). Introduction: Starship Britain or universal enterprise. In R. Keat & N. Abercrombie (Eds.), Enterprise Culture (pp. 1–17). London: Routledge.
Kittur, A., Nickerson, J. V., Bernstein, M., Gerber, E., Shaw, A., Zimmerman, J., & Horton, J. (2013). The future of crowd work. In In Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (pp. 1301–1318).
Kloosterboer, D. (2007). Innovative trade union strategies. Utrecht: FNV.
Kneese, T., & Rosenblat, A. (2014). Understanding fair labour practices in a networked age. Open Society Foundations’ Future of Work Commissioned Research Papers. Retrieved November 20, 2014, from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2536619.
Lavagnini, M., & Mennella, A. (2015). The latest Italian labour market reforms in the perspective of decent work basic-relations-fairness proposal. Global Labour Journal, 6(2), 156–172.
Lehdonvirta, V., Barnard, H., Graham, M., & Hjorth, I. (2014). Online labour markets—leveling the playing field for international service markets?. Paper presented at IPP2014: Crowdsourcing for Politics and Policy, 25–26 September, Oxford, UK.
Lehdonvirta, V., & Ernkvist, D. (2011). Knowledge map of the virtual economy: Converting the virtual economy into development potential. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Leimeister, J. M., & Durward, D. (2015). New forms of employment and IT: Crowdsourcing. Paper presented at the 4 th ILO conference on Regulating for Decent Work, 8–10 July, Geneva, Switzerland.
Lerche, J. (2012). Labour regulations and labour standards in India: Decent work? Global Labour Journal, 3(1), 16–39.
Lerche, J., Guerin, I., & Srivastava, R. (2012). Guest editors' introduction. Global Labour Journal, 3(1), 1–15.
Menon, S. (2015, January 12). Pick your paymasters. Business World.
Moody, K. (1997). Towards an international social movement unionism. New Left Review, 225, 52–72.
Moore, P., Dannreuther, C., & Möllmann, C. (2015). Guest editors’ introduction: The future and praxis of decent work. Global Labour Journal, 6(2), 127–137.
Morgan, J., & Olsen, W. (2015). The absence of decent work: The continued development of forced and unfree labour in India. Global Labour Journal, 6(2), 173–188.
Munck, R. (2010). Globalization and the labour movement: Challenges and responses. Global Labour Journal, 1(2), 218–232.
NCEUS. (2007). Report on conditions of work and promotion of livelihoods in the agricultural sector. New Delhi: NCEUS.
NCEUS. (2009). The challenge of employment in India: An informal economy perspective. New Delhi: NCEUS.
Noronha, E., & D’Cruz, P. (2009). Engaging the professional: Organizing call centre agents in India. Industrial Relations Journal, 40(3), 215–234.
Pattenden, J. (2012). Migrating between rural Raichur and boomtown Bangalore: Class relations and the circulation of labour in South India. Global Labour Journal, 3(1), 163–190.
Peels, R., & Fino, M. (2015). Pushed out the door, back in through the window: The role of the ILO in EU and US trade agreements in facilitating the decent work agenda. Global Labour Journal, 6(2), 189–202.
Pongratz, H. J., & Voss, G. G. (2003). From employee to ‘entreployee’: Towards a ‘self-entrepreneurial’work force? Concepts and Transformation, 8(3), 239–254.
Prasad, P. (2005). Crafting qualitative research: Working in the postpositivist traditions. Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe.
Risak, M., & Warter, J. (2015). Decent crowdwork: Legal strategies towards fair employment conditions in the virtual sweatshop. Paper presented at the 4 th ILO Conference on Regulating for Decent Work, 8–10 July, Geneva, Switzerland.
Scherer, A. G. (2011). Critical theory and its contribution to critical management studies. In M. Alvesson, T. Bridgman, & H. Willmott (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of critical management studies (pp. 29–51). London: Oxford University Press.
Sinha, J. B. P. (2015). Psycho-social analysis of the Indian mind-set. New Delhi: Springer.
Spooner, D. (2015). The future of decent work. Global Labour Journal, 6(2), 245–248.
Srivastava, R. (2012). Changing employment conditions of the Indian workforce and implications for decent work. Global Labour Journal, 3(1), 63–90.
Standing, G. (2008). The ILO: An agency for globalization? Development and Change, 39(3), 355–384.
Sum, N. L. (2010). Wal-Martization and CSR-ization in developing countries. In P. Utting & J. C. Marques (Eds.), Corporate social responsibility and regulatory governance. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Swart, G. (2013). oDesk + Elance merger FAQ. Retrieved May 13, 2015, from https://www.upwork.com/blog/2013/12/MergerFAQ/.
Tevdovski, D. (2015). Decent work diagnostics for a western Balkan country stuck in the neoliberal doctrine: The case of the Republic of Macedonia. Global Labour Journal, 6(2), 203–220.
Thompson, C. (1999). If you could just provide me with a sample: Examining sampling in qualitative and quantitative research papers. Evidence Based Nursing, 2(3), 68–70.
Tomei, M. (2011). Decent work for domestic workers. In S. Lee & D. McCann (Eds.), Regulating for decent work (pp. 255–290). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Upwork. (2014). Upwork online work report. Retrieved August 20, 2015, fromhttp://elance-odesk.com/online-work-report-global.
Upwork. (2015). Our story. Retrieved May 13, 2015, fromhttps://www.upwork.com/about/.
Urry, J. (2014). Offshoring. Cambridge: Polity.
Van den Putte, L. (2015). Involving civil society in the implementation of social provisions in trade agreements: Comparing the US and EU approach in the case of South Korea. Global Labour Journal, 6(2), 221–235.
Van Manen, M. (1998). Researching lived experience. London, ON: Althouse.
Vanni, I., & Tarì, M. (2005). The life and deeds of San Precario, patron saint of precarious workers and lives. Fibreculture Journal, 5, 1–11.
Vosko, L. (2002). Decent work: The shifting role of the ILO and the struggle for global social justice. Global Social Policy, 2(1), 19–46.
Vosko, L. (2009). Managing the margins: Gender, citizenship and the international regulation of precarious employment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
D’Cruz, P. (2017). Partially Empowering but not Decent? The Contradictions of Online Labour Markets. In: Noronha, E., D'Cruz, P. (eds) Critical Perspectives on Work and Employment in Globalizing India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3491-6_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3491-6_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-3490-9
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-3491-6
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)