Entre algoritmos e asfaltos: a plataformização do trabalho de motoristas de aplicativos em Fortaleza-CE nos marcos da lógica da produção ultraflexível e predatória (2022-2024)

Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate the phenomenon of the platformization of the work of private passenger transport app drivers in Fortaleza, with an emphasis on working conditions in the post-pandemic period (2022-2024). The analysis is part of the context of the growing precariousness of labor relations, intensified after the 2016 Coup and aggravated by the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. We are interested in understanding this phenomenon from a double dimension: 1) the expressions of the precariousness of platformized work, within the framework of the growing informalization of the Brazilian labor market; 2) the processes of construction of the subjectivity of the subjects involved in this precarious form of work. To this end, the main reference is the tradition developed by Karl Marx and Frederic Engels, as well as the bibliography of contemporary authors, including: István Mészáros, David Harvey, Ruy Mauro Marini, Ludmila Abílio, Rafael Grohmann and Virgínia Fontes. Likewise, other methodological research approaches were developed: documentary research on bills, as well as on the positions of business entities and workers' representatives, regarding platformized work in Brazil; collection of a set of macroeconomic and Brazilian labor market data made available on the internet; research in widely circulated newspapers that feature news and testimonies related to the platformization of work; field research, with observations of the daily lives of app drivers in Fortaleza, application of 151 structured interviews through a questionnaire and carrying out 29 open interviews with these workers. Among the app drivers interviewed, 62.2% reported working more than 50 hours per week, and within this group, 29.8% reported working more than 70 hours per week. The lack of time for rest, leisure, and family life, combined with a daily life marked by insecurity and the absence of labor rights, has negatively impacted the lives and health of these workers, revealing a situation of extreme precariousness in app-based work in Fortaleza. We argue here that, in contemporary times, the overexploitation of the workforce presents new expressions, embodied in the logic of ultra-flexible and predatory production, with platformized work as the main model.