In recent years, the platform model of capitalism has spread throughout the world, exacerbating precariousness, informality and the delocalisation of labour relations wherever it goes. This in turn has created the need for alternatives that counteract the instrumentalisation of emerging technologies to exploit workers.

One viable alternative is platform cooperativism, a model of worker association that uses new technologies to ensure the well-being of workers rather than exploit them through algorithmic mechanisms of control. It fuses cooperative principles with platform technology in order to develop fairer, more sustainable and solidarity-based initiatives in the field of labour relations in an increasingly digitised and automated economy.

Platform cooperativism encompasses diverse organisational models, from producer cooperatives to multi-stakeholder and data cooperatives. Their activities are based on principles such as human centrality, algorithmic transparency and explainability through the collective, participatory and democratic design of artificial intelligence (AI) systems applied to production processes.

Fair design applied to algorithmic management systems is one of the guiding principles of this associative model. Workers participate in the process of programming and training the tools used for task assignment, performance evaluation and cooperative management.

The concept of platform cooperativism was initially proposed by Trebor Scholz, at professor at the New School University in New York and associate of the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University, a think tank on the internet and society. Within just a few years, his idea was gaining recognition in international forums. Since 2014, he has contributed to conceptualising and popularising its practices as director of the Platform Cooperativism Consortium (PCC), a digital space dedicated to supporting the establishment, growth and conversion of platform cooperatives. Scholz’s book Own This! How Platform Cooperatives Help Workers Build a Democratic Internet, published in 2023, provides a comprehensive overview of platform cooperativism and all the ways it is being put into practice across different continents.

Scholz analyses successful real-world examples, such as Up&Go (a domestic worker cooperative) and Drivers Co-operative (an app-based transport cooperative), to demonstrate how platform cooperatives can offer more equitable distribution of revenue, fair remuneration, greater transparency and algorithmic security, as well as guarantee rights standards based on the principles of decent work.

Good practices of platform cooperativism in Latin America

From the perspective of the Global South, the flourishing of platform cooperativism has proven to be an important catalyst for the future of work, as well as an alternative to models that amplify structural informality and precarious labour relations.

In Brazil, platform cooperativism has established itself as an innovative model that prioritises equity, transparency and participation in the creation of an inclusive digital economy.

One of the country’s best-known examples is AppJusto, a driver platform founded in 2020 in the city of Araraquara. In contrast to the model of uberisation, AppJusto opted for a system which achieves the principles of cooperativism through the fair and equitable distribution of the value generated by each trip. Drivers receive 95 per cent of what users pay, compared with the less than 60 per cent they receive on other commercial platforms. The remaining 5 per cent collected by the cooperative is used to sustain the platform, as well as to provide humanised support to users and drivers.

AppJusto has all the elements of cooperative management and, in turn, is linked to municipal local development policy. A striking feature of this platform cooperativism initiative is its transparency, which it achieves by keeping the application code open, ensuring participation and access to data by both users and partners.

Another Brazilian project that deserves highlighting is Señoritas Courier, a bicycle delivery service run exclusively by cisgender women and transgender people. Founded in 2017, the cooperative’s deliveries cover the entire city of São Paulo and are made by appointment only. Señoritas Courier, which was featured in a documentary, brings a feminist and gender perspective to delivery services, with an eye towards diversity, sustainability and fair working conditions, and as such provides a counterpoint to the gender biases present in the digital economy.

According to research conducted by the Brazilian Centre of Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP) and the Brazilian Mobility and Technology Association (AMOBITEC), of the more than 1.6 million people currently working as app or delivery drivers in Brazil, only 5 per cent are women.

In Mexico, the cooperative project Thlok Ciclo-logística carries out shipments and deliveries exclusively by bicycle and offers a web shop and mobile application for e-commerce. Its services are available to both individuals and companies. The project is supported by CoopCycle, a federation of cooperatives present in 16 countries.

Founded in Europe, CoopCycle is democratically managed by its member initiatives. CoopCycle Latin America was established in December 2021 and is currently active in Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.

CoopCycle enables its network of cooperatives to manage their deliveries and its customers to access the service by means of a complete open-source algorithmic cycle-logistics management tool. The software is protected by a reciprocity licence, which reserves its use to the cooperatives.

Lessons on platform cooperativism and trade unionism from the Global South

Platform cooperativism is both a convergence of technological innovation and cooperative principles, as well as a response to the demands of precarious workers seeking to generate participatory and democratic processes in the programming of algorithmic management tools.

Cooperativist practices for programming, training and algorithmic management are not only relevant to platform workers but to all workers who are or will be, to a greater or lesser extent, subject to algorithmic subordination at the workplace. Trade unions are thus increasingly incorporating good practices of fair algorithmic design into their agendas in order to put algorithmic management on the collective bargaining table for other categories of workers.

Collective bargaining on algorithmic management is and will increasingly be a vital tool for the trade union movement to ensure standards for the protection of workers’ rights.

Likewise, while progress may be made in recognising the right to collective bargaining in algorithmic management systems, questions remain as to how and where to look for examples of shared, participatory and democratic programming processes in which workers take on the roles of programmers and users of artificial intelligence, ensuring fair design and the rights to equity and non-discrimination in AI systems.

The answer may lie in the exchange between the trade union movement and platform cooperativism.

Several organisations and academic institutions have been mapping productive platform cooperative initiatives, making it possible to visualise common frameworks and form cooperative networks in different parts of the world.

Cooperation with trade union organisations, as well as the promotion of local production and consumption, and circular economies, boost the integral and sustainable approach of platform cooperativism.

Participatory programming of algorithmic management systems allows workers to influence the design and implementation of algorithms and foster a more democratic and equitable approach to decision-making in artificial intelligence systems. Practices of digital sovereignty and technological autonomy based on the cooperative model consolidate the principles of self-management and workplace democracy. Transparency in algorithmic design means more than just revealing the source code of AI systems; it entails involving workers in algorithmic decision-making to ensure equity and active participation in the application of digital tools at every scale.

Faced with the macro-trends of job elimination, growing job insecurity and relocation generated by the new technologies and their instrumentalisation to intensify and sophisticate the dynamics of labour exploitation, initiatives are needed that move things in a different direction.

Creating a different world of work requires identifying and disseminating those practices and experiences that have managed to combine technological progress with the application of principles such as human centrality, solidarity and transparency.

In this context, platform cooperativism represents more than just an alternative employment model: it also offers a vision of hope for building a more equitable and participatory world of work in the digital age.