Rider Platforms?

The aim of this article is to analyze the emergence of worker-owned platforms—whether cooperatives or collectives—as a laboratory of platform labor, considering the circulation of workers’ struggles. The research involves six cases in three different countries (Spain, France, Brazil) according to the following dimensions: productive processes and work organization, technological challenges and building platforms, use of social media to communicate with and organize workers, cooperation among cooperatives, and the future of worker-owned experiences. The analysis highlights that, despite different contexts, there are issues in common, such as the low number of workers, the central role of social media for communicating and organizing work, and the emergence of cooperation among cooperatives. This is an ongoing and emerging process that can be the beginning of a broader process of reinventing local economic circuits of production and consumption that involves digital platforms for the common good.