CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Szabo, Milan |
|---|---|
| Title | In Search of Disciplinable Labourers: The Emergence of a New Labour Regime at Wolt Food Delivery Platform in Budapest Investigated through the Lived Experience of Migrant Workers |
| Summary | This qualitative research project investigates the emergence of a new labour regime at Wolt food delivery platform in Budapest that relies on migrant workers and outsources their management to intermediary fleet companies entailing tighter control mechanisms for these workers. Based on fieldwork conducted between January and April 2025, this thesis centres on the way migrant workers experience this novel labour regime and how they respond to the pressures it creates. It is detailed what makes migrant workers disciplinable and exploitable in this labour regime that seeks to introduce a vulnerable group to the overall workforce to cut costs for the platform. Furthermore, the study includes how despite the fragmentation of the workforce, migrant workers form solidarities and pursue collective as well as individual strategies aimed at improving their position despite the fact that their conditions undermine the possibility of collective organisation to a large extent. The study aims to contribute to our understanding of how digital labour platforms attempt to create new techniques aimed at disciplining workers and the worker subjectivities this process gives birth to. |
| Supervisor | Rajaram, Prem Kumar; Zentai, Violetta |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/szabo_milan.pdf |
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