Sergio Bologna

Self-employed, ecommerce and logistics workers: (un)expected forms of social conflict

Discussant: Patricia Leighton

Seminar co-organised by CERIC (Centre for Employment Relation, Innovation and Change) and ITS (Institute for Transport Studies) of the University of Leeds

Abstract

Over the last few decades, the decline of western manufacturing and the rise of the platform economy caused radical changes to workforce structure, including a large increase of solo self-employed workers. The ongoing debate mainly discusses how to distinguish between ‘bogus’, ‘dependent’ or ‘genuine’ self-employment. Thus, the focus is usually on the legal status of self-employed workers involved in different activities, from knowledge work to ecommerce supply chains.

This seminar will engage the debate on self-employment and logistics by proposing a different perspective: the (re)configuration of social conflict and the (un)expected emergence of workers’ struggles. This will lead to a reflexive conclusion about how the voice of self-employed workers in the knowledge economy and global supply chains are configured and what resources can be mobilised to organise those deeply affected by automation and digitisation.

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Sergio Bologna has taught History of the Worker’s Movement and Industrial Society at a number of universities in Italy (Trento, Padua) and Germany (Bremen). His work develops a critical analysis of the changing structures in the contemporary labour market. In the 1980s, he began a logistics and maritime affairs consultancy for big business and public administrations. Sergio has been a member of expert groups for transport and logistics planning at the Ministry of Infrastructure in Italy. He is a member of the Board of ACTA, the Italian Freelancers Association, sister organisation of the Freelancers Union in the US and member of EFIP, the EU Forum of Independent Professionals. In his last book “The Rise of the European Self-employed workforce”, he discusses how the development of a collective identity among freelancers can bring to the construction of a network of cooperation and solidarity and to the creation of a freelancers union.

Patricia Leighton is Professor Emeritus at the University of South Wales, UK and a Professor at IPag Business School, France and a Visiting Professor at Nottingham Trent Uniuversity, UK. She is a former Jean Monnet Professor of European Law and Professor at the College of Europe. She is an employment lawyer with a research and writing focus on the analysis of work relationships, especially those of the self-employed and has undertaken research projects for many organisations, including the ILO, European Commission, governmental and professional bodies and is the author of seventeen books and many journal articles. She is a regular contributor to the Industrial Law Journal, Business Law Review, HRM journals and most recently co-edited a Special Edition of the Journal of Management and Organisation (2017) devoted to self-employment. She is currently writing a book on the challenges facing employment relations in the 21st Century.