O trabalho em plataformas digitais: autonomia ou subordinação? a subjetividade em questão

Abstract

This research aims to identify key elements to understand the meanings attributed by digital platform workers to their labor. In this context, the study sought to explore the objective and subjective dimensions of platformization, aiming to broaden the understanding of the processes of subjectivation that permeate the experiences of these workers, marked by the contradictions between autonomy and subordination. We consider that the dialectical relation between autonomy and subordination carries a contradiction that lies at the core of the capitalist system's organization. Not by chance, these contradictions are present in the disputes concerning platform labor regulation and can be identified in the discourse of platform workers. We applied an electronic questionnaire, answered by 436 delivery workers and app drivers from all Brazilian states, except Tocantins, and collected statements from workers and unionists on social media. Our theoretical framework is Socio-Historical Psychology, grounded in historical and dialectical materialism and its scientific method. We start from the principle that subjectivity and objectivity are mutually constituted as a unity of opposites. We used the categories of the Subjective Dimension of Reality (SDR) and Experience (E. P. Thompson) as the main analytical tools. Using the Meaning Core construction method, four main categories were identified to guide our analysis: the pseudo-concreteness of formal labor, the pseudo-concreteness of platform labor, the aversion to subordination, and time control as a determining factor. Finally, we propose the following reflection: do the contradictions revealed in the platform workers' discourse suggest that the challenges related to securing labor rights and social protection go beyond disputes over formal labor contract?