"If you work like this again, you're out" - Precarization of Migrant Workers in the Context of E-Commerce's Fragmented Employment and Digital Surveillance

Abstract

This article is based on ethnographic research and interviews with workers in manual jobs in e-commerce. First, the labour process in a distribution center is described and management practices are analyzed. The work consists of a series of micro tasks. Some workers in parcel logistics perform simple structured activities, for example on an assembly line, while others are guided by digital devices that monitor their work performance. This coexistence of diverse guidance systems differentiates the results of previous research in this area. With performance recorded, management pushes workers to work faster by threatening dismissal or offering the prospect of permanent employment. Workers in the industry are predominantly migrants and affected by multiple forms of precariousness. In the context of fragmented employment, this precariousness is exploited to push workers to work faster. The results show that the precarious working conditions in the industry exacerbate the multiple precariousness of migrant workers and therefore negatively.