Organising a Platform Delivery Workforce in Germany: A Story from the Front Line

This article tells the story of a worker-led initiative to form a Works Council at a Q-commerce platform in Germany. From the viewpoint of a rider involved, the article first describes the widespread dissatisfaction of workers with management, which created the need for organising. The article then narrates the difficulties in ‘recruiting’ engaged colleagues to the Works Council initiative among a transient workforce, the eventual success of the ‘workers’ assembly’ and, finally, the shock of the ‘Hub’s’ entire workforce being fired in an act of platform capitalist ‘union busting’. Irrespective of its sad end, this On the Front Line account of workplace organising in Germany’s platform sector may offer insights and inspiration for those trying to build and strengthen the collective struggles of diverse and precarious platform workers elsewhere.