Delivering Resistance: Exploring Mobilisation and Collective Actions of Food Delivery Couriers in Georgia

Abstract

This thesis investigates the collective actions of gig workers in Georgia. Specifically, the study sheds light on how Glovo, Bolt Food, and Wolt food delivery couriers mobilise for better working conditions and labour rights in the country. For this purpose, the thesis draws on news reports covering riders’ mobilisation and in-depth interviews with five former couriers who have participated in collection actions, providing quantitative and qualitative insights. The study also examines the factors that empower couriers in mobilisation and delves into the role that human rights play in this process. To this end, the thesis combines the Power Resources Theory with the concept of solidarity and offers a comprehensive discussion. This thesis demonstrates that although couriers are less likely to mobilise due to their exclusion from the scope of labour laws, highly atomised workplace, lack of access to formal collective representation channels, and other obstacles that the organisation of labour within the gig economy presents, they nevertheless manage to navigate through these barriers and ultimately mobilise. The study maps a myriad of collective actions, primarily driven by self-mobilised couriers’ grassroots groups in forms of strikes and street protests but also expanding to more formal and institutional routes with CSOs and trade union involvement. Unveiling the ways in which couriers are collectivising fragmented working environment, the study shows that they are overcoming workplace dispersal and building ties of solidarity, leading to mobilisation. Importantly, the thesis also employs a human rights lens, observing that human rights empower couriers who find themselves outside the ambit of labour laws in their collective action endeavours. Overall, the study contributes to the growing scholarship on workers’ mobilisation in the gig economy – the phenomenon that was thought would not emerge.