“Feminist Perspectives on the Platform Economy: Women Workers and Unionising” is the 23rd session of our Political Economy Teach-in Series, and was held on May 28, 2025 with researcher and activist Kruskaya Hidalgo.

Kruskaya Hidalgo is a researcher, unionist and feminist activist. She is one of the founders of the Observatorio de Plataformas, a collective of artists, researchers, activists and digital platform workers who question working conditions and violations within platform economies, presenting alternatives for ethical work and consumption, so that “the algorithm does not control our humanity.” Through decolonial methodologies and the use of sensitive, poetic and embodied languages, Kruskaya explores the impact of platform economies on the bodies and lives of women, especially migrant and racialised women, constructing life stories and collective knowledge that challenge the coloniality of power-knowing-being.

In this interview, Kruskaya shares more about how she began her work with workers in the platform economy, and discusses what this form of labour means both within the capitalist market and for workers themselves. She also shares her many insights about the intersections between labour union movements and other justice movements, especially feminist movements—and she not only provides an analysis of this, but also offers practical strategies for how activists across struggles can collaborate and support one another. She ends with some reflections about technology, the place it holds in our affective and personal worlds, and the transformations it is cultivating in our lives today.

What made you want to work on platform economies, in particular as a feminist researcher and organiser?

I started exploring and researching the platform economy in 2019, and I became curious because by that time, platforms in Ecuador had been operating for a year. In a year, the city changed a lot due to this new form of work. [I started to see] things that didn’t happen before, such as people on bicycles with these bags in different colours, or platform workers stopping on different corners and gathering in small assemblies waiting for offers or for work. So, I started asking myself what they are doing, and what is this kind of work or job. I started with a survey asking [workers] how these platforms work. Only one or two months after I started the survey, I realised that it was very precarious work in different ways, and there were so many layers of intersectionality. There are migration issues in the platform economy, gender issues in the platform economy, but also North-South logics. The majority of these companies are multinational companies based in the Global North, but work in the Global South. The difference of contracts and how they operate in the North and in the South is presenting a new form of colonialism through technology. So, when we talk about the platform economy, we are talking about the future of labour, and it’s so important that we resist, fight, and explore this right now. Because tomorrow, all the sectors that we know are probably going to have algorithm management, certain forms of artificial intelligence, or models of platform economy. So, I believe that it’s urgent.

I also started exploring union organising because I haven’t seen as much renewal and creativity in the union movement as with these workers. They are young workers, migrant workers, and depending on the sector in the platform economy, they can also be very masculinised or feminised. When we are talking about riders and drivers – platforms like Uber, Uber Eats, DiDi, Delivery Hero, Foodpanda… We are talking about two sectors that are very masculinised. Ninety percent of the labour force are men. However, there are a lot of women organising in those sectors. So, the representativity between genders is completely different than in other sectors. You have a history of a labour movement that is very machista, very patriarchal, and not just in Latin America but also in Asia, Africa, Europe. However, in the platform economy in Latin America, almost all the leaders that started the movement are women, and that’s huge! Migrant women, queer women… This is why I am still fascinated, why I feel a responsibility and a big commitment to this fight. It’s also why I believe that the platform workers that I have accompanied over these past six years have been my biggest school, and I am learning every day with them.

How do you think we can make the conversation about unionising relevant and valuable for contexts in which this is still very new work, and is still presenting itself as a great opportunity for workers when there are no other opportunities?

This is a very important question. When we’re talking about the platform economy, there are different debates that locate the first forms of gig economy in the 90s. In Brazil for example, there is this amazing thinker, a sociologist-anthropologist, Ludmila Abílio, and she says that the first example of this gig economy was with cosmetics companies that were using women to sell their products. Since the 90s, we have been seeing these women, so many of them heads of their homes, selling these products to make a living. But none of them were contracted by the companies, so they didn’t have contracts or social security, right? So Ludmila is saying that this model was a first “intervention” of capitalism. Others say different things, so this is not about entering the debate about the history of gig economy. But what I want to say is that even though there is this history, they are locating the first companies in 2008-2010. And during this time there was a major crisis in the economic systems in Europe and in the U.S.: it was the US housing bubble, the banking crisis, the mortgage crisis… that impacted the labour market, and the unemployment rates were so high. Maybe that’s happening today as well. So, the platform economy is based in the crisis of the system, and it’s appearing as a way to provide employment in a very precarious system. In a moment where we don’t have work, we don’t have rights, we don’t have any way to survive, you may see the platforms as the only solution, and probably that is true in your daily life. When I talk to workers in the platform economy, none of them are saying “we don’t want these apps to exist anymore”. That is not the demand. What we are saying is that they need to operate within the labour rights systems that we have been fighting for, for decades.

It’s sad to say this, but in the capitalist system, fear is one of the biggest ways to control workers, and it’s the same whether you are in a university, or in a factory, or if you are an app worker. Fear means that we as workers, we just have our labour force, and the people in control who have the capital and the means in the company can fire you any day. But the unions and the labour movement are saying that if we’re fighting alone, there is a bigger probability that the fear crystalises. But if I organise collective power, it’s less probable. One worker pushing for labour reforms in the platform economy is different than thousands of workers doing so, and there are examples. So, if people are reading this right now, please comrades see that there are examples and you are not alone. And these spaces, where we have these conversations, are spaces to see and connect with other workers. Right now, in my work, I’m connecting unions of platform workers all around the world, and we have been creating a space of exchange. We have 30 unions from 23 countries. The experiences in Malawi or Morocco or Egypt is very similar to what’s happening in Panama, in Costa Rica, in Philippines. Just as these companies are operating on a multinational level, the labour movement also needs to operate internationally.

Are we seeing intersections between the organising of platform economy workers with other movements, such as the climate justice movement or migrant movement? Do you see that we are at a place in which there are these extended solidarities?

I have seen examples of how different movements are cooperating or working together. However, I believe that we need to push for more collaboration and radical solidarity between different struggles. For example, in the feminist movement there are different efforts to include debates of labour rights in the platform economy, but I think that they need more support and visibility. It’s so important that feminists put labour as one of the main agendas that we need to dispute today, because when we’re talking about care, about life without violence, about sustainability, about futures, we’re also talking about labour.

I have also seen efforts from platform workers to include migrant agendas in their struggles, mostly because the migrant labour force in this model of the economy is very high. In some countries 60% or 70% of the labour force, of riders, are migrants. So, of course union agendas include regularisation, papers, and so on, for migrants. What’s missing is the feminist perspective, but there are women unionists, who are feminists, pushing for that. But they are feeling very alone, there is maybe one leader that is a woman in a union of so many men. And when you’re trying to find a space in the feminist movement, they might tell you no, because you’re working with men, or that “you are not a true leader” because you are doing what the president of your union wants.

It’s important to understand the imbrication of the struggles, because so many times we end up in this struggle of identity: who’s the legitimate protagonist or the legitimate subject of each of the fights? What is the subject of the struggle of the feminist movement? Or in the anti-racist movement, or when we’re talking about climate justice? When we end up in these kinds of debates, we are losing power in connecting among us. Unfortunately, with the labour agendas, there is the idea that the labour movement and unions are patriarchal, are mostly men. This stigma is so present, because it is true, and it’s creating a lot of barriers to communication and collaborative efforts and solidarity.

It’s complicated, but it’s important to have these very honest conversations among movements, and to understand that sometimes it’s easier to see the problems in other movements but not in your own. So, I would say that with platform workers, the intersectionality is very clear, at least for me—l mean you are seeing migrant issues, gender issues, and of course climate change is there, like the materials of production. So many workers are now organising to create cooperatives, coops, to do deliveries with bikes and move outside the gas industry.

As feminists, we always like to think about alternative ways of things—has there been ways of thinking about organising for workers’ rights in the platform economy “alternatively”, and do you feel we should go for that? Or should we have more incorporation and intersectionality, so having feminists in labour union organising, and unionists or unionist agendas within the feminist movement?

Well, there is not one recipe, but I really believe that we need more women and more serious feminists in the labour movement. I want to acknowledge that there are so many great feminist leaders in the labour movement, in Argentina, in Uruguay, in Ecuador. Right now, if you are following Indonesia with all the protests, you see that a lot of the leaders on the streets in front of the police are women, women from the labour movement. The protests in Indonesia started with the workers. But I think that for a bigger transformation, it’s so important to have more and more of us, so you don’t feel isolated. But also in the feminist movement, [we need] more unionists there.

But [as part of a] bigger reflection… as feminists, we are thinking a lot about possible futures, and in platform economy there are different alternatives that workers are creating. There is this big movement in the platform economy that is called “platform cooperativism” or “platform coops”, and it is a movement of creating apps for the workers, through the workers, managed by the workers. There are examples of this happening right now in South Africa, Europe, Brazil, Argentina… different examples of how workers, with the support and help of other kinds of activists, are creating apps for different things. And it’s not about thinking, “oh we’re going to create the alternative to Uber”. It’s about creating different platforms for different things that were not covered by these mainstream platform economies. So, for example in South Africa, there is a co-app for fishers. This app connects restaurants with fishers, without intermediaries, so you can have fresh fish and seafood at restaurants, and you are raising the rates for fishers, who are very exploited in all our countries. Plus, you are collaborating directly. And for example, domestic workers have co-apps for offering their services without intermediaries, but also in some countries, domestic workers are creating apps for labour rights. For example, in Ecuador, the union of domestic workers created an app where domestic workers can [know] all their rights, there is also a calculator to [calculate] their rates, they have examples of contracts. All of this is also [available] as audio, because as you know, in a lot of countries, domestic workers may not have finished school, they may not know how to read or write, so they can listen to the app and they can negotiate with employers.

There are so many ways of using technology and creating different alternatives to the platform economy. So, I think that it’s so important to start talking more about platform coops, to see how workers are doing this, to start using these kinds of apps. If you are interested in supporting women organising, there are now co-apps with trans women operating everything. If you’re an environmentalist, you have now co-apps that use bikes and connecting organic stores. There are so many ways we can support, and I think that one part is disseminating, and another is how the feminist movement can help these processes. When we are talking about labour rights, we’re also talking about gender. We’re talking about what’s going to happen with sexual violence and harassment. That’s a big issue that they need more feminists for, to help think about protocols, mechanisms, laws. We’re talking about maternity—there are so many maternity rights to push for in agendas in the unions, but also with governments. We’re also talking about how to guarantee that there is no gender pay gap. There are so many areas where we can have more collaboration.

Do you have anything you want to add, a final word to the interview?

I want to finish with two reflections that I have these days due to listening to and reading feminist authors that I admire. One of them is Paola Ricaurte, she’s a theorist, a thinker, from Ecuador and Mexico, and she is working with decolonial thinking and technology. One thing that she’s saying with other authors, other women, mostly with indigenous women in Mexico, is that when we’re talking about all of these issues, like AI, platform economy, [digital] technology, we first need to dispute the very idea of technology. Technology is not just Western technology, it is not just internet, electricity, computers, Chat GPT, your phone, my phone, Zoom… that’s just one area of technology. Technologists have been with us since the beginning of humanity. Technology of fire, bonfire, agriculture… so many technologies that we have until today that are counter-technologies that we need to put value to. We as feminists and we as unionists have so many technologies. Even the technologies that we are using today, WhatsApp and Zoom that allow us to talk, they are technologies that are sustaining and creating affection. It’s not just a technology that makes us talk. I think that is key in this dispute. Because technology is not neutral; technology must be disputed, but there are so many technologies that are changing the world in the ways that we want. And the other technologies that are colonial, capitalist, patriarchal and so on, also are technologies that help us to counter those same powers. So, I think it’s so important to think about this deeply, and start using even those technologies more intentionally.

And the second reflection that I want to end with is that the future is today. We are seeing platform economy and AI, both of them with algorithmic management. It’s so important to think about algorithms, they are transforming our world today. Not just the labour experience of work; they’re transforming the relations that we have. How we talk now, how we call, how we don’t call and we just use WhatsApp, memes, emojis, what we eat, what we consume, what we listen to, how we communicate our life through stories and through followers, how we are creating our ego and our personalities through how many likes we have on a photo. For this reason, I want to put this urgency that we need to start fighting right now. All these transformations are going to impact tomorrow in ways that we cannot understand yet. The fight is right now. And that fight is not something new, it doesn’t mean that we need to be super creative and invent something new. We are coming from historical struggles. We’re coming from movements that have resisted coloniality, and from liberation. We are coming from countries that were not these countries before. We are coming from feminist struggles where four decades ago there was not this possibility of us talking right now. We have so much knowledge in our past struggles that we just need to apply today. So [there is] also this urgency of recognising the historical legacy that we have, the ancestry of struggles that we have, and that’s also a key of resistance. When we’re talking about all these economies, we’re also talking about a labour movement that started one century ago, we’re talking about women’s rights and feminist rights that started decades and decades ago, but we also talk about coloniality, and that’s a historical struggle, and we’re having tools there to fight together.

Interview edited by Talah Hassan

Talah lives in Beirut and works in feminist knowledge production, from research, writing, and editing to conceptualizing and coordinating creative projects and workshops. She is trained in medical anthropology, with specific interests in sexuality and sexual health, politicized notions of care, embodiment, and the medical / mental health industrial complex. She is skilled in qualitative research methodologies, especially oral history and research ethics, and in qualitative data analysis. She co-founded and organizes with a local queer mutual aid group in Lebanon, alongside other feminist, leftist groups when possible.