Platform Labor and In/Formality: Organization among Motorcycle Taxi Drivers in Bandung, Indonesia

Abstract

There is a growing consensus that emerging forms of flexibilized platform labor (e.g., Upwork, Uber) necessitate new forms of mobilization to resist exploitation, given workers’ atomization and lack of statutory rights. However, Euro-American concerns about radical reductions in labor security are countered by workforces in the “near South,” where precarious, unprotected work has long been the norm. I explore incrementalist organization in motorcycle taxi (ojek) drivers’ resistance to the flexible labor regime of Go-Jek, an Indonesian ride-hailing app. I examine ojek pangkalan (older-style informal-sector drivers) and Himpunan Driver Bandung Raya (HDBR, a grassroots app-based driver association) in the city of Bandung. Although antagonistic toward each other, ojek pangkalan and HDBR employ similar improvisatory strategies, notably micro-territorial basecamps and grassroots social security, to establish claims to their working lives. Incrementalist strategies in Indonesia are thus highly flexible in helping workers manage precarity across formal and informal contexts. By examining organization repertoires among app-based and older-style ojek drivers, this paper contributes to discussions about how the precarity of platform labor is produced and managed in a global context.