Global Labour Journal

Slowly climbing a slippery slope: Trade unions at COP

Jeremy Anderson — 2025-01-31

This piece is a reflection on the role of the trade union movement in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process, including its annual Conference of the Parties (COP). I write it as someone who has been engaging in COPs as part of the global trade union delegation for the past four years. And it’s important to stress: for the labour movement, climate action is not reducible to the UNFCCC. Whatever trade unions decide to do or not do inside the COP process, there is an enormous need for climate activism in a range of other spaces, from the workplace to national politics.

That being said, I will argue that trade unions should continue to engage in COPs, as it is a key forum where the new climate economy is being shaped. Although I recognise the many failings and structural weaknesses of the COP process, with Brazil taking up the COP30 Presidency this year, this would be a bad time to withdraw from it.

Bogliaccini, J.A. (2024) Empowering Labour: Leftist Approaches to Wage Policy in Unequal Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781-0094335-25 240 pp. US$105.00 (hardcover).

Pablo Perez-Ahumada — 2025-01-31

Kally Forrest (2024) Lydia: An Anthem to the Unity of Women. Johannesburg: Jacana Media. ISBN 9781431434800. 230 pp. ZAR300.00 (paperback); US$ 19.55 (kindle)

Diane Cooper — 2025-01-31

In Lydia: Anthem to the Unity of Women, Kally Forrest documents the extraordinary life of the late Lydia Komape (Kompe), affectionately known as ‘Mam’ Lydia’. The biography chronicles her journey from her rural childhood, to her life as a trade unionist and a rural land restitution activist, to a member of South Africa’s first democratic parliament. Forrest draws on interviews with Mam’ Lydia, her family and fellow comrades, to provide an insightful window into a life deeply entwined with South African struggles for equality and justice. Mam’ Lydia’s story unfolds against the backdrop of the pervasive and oppressive apartheid system, which legally enforced racial discrimination and political, social and economic exclusion.

Driving Gigs in Oman: Women and Techno-Fixes in the Platform Economy

Crystal A. Ennis — 2025-01-31

Digital platforms mediating work between customers and service providers have expanded exponentially in the past decade, driving a growing research agenda on the impact of platform capitalism, AI and the gig economy on labour around the world. This paper is interested in understanding the platform economy at the intersection of gender with the political economy of labour. Focusing on the Omani case of a new women’s taxi service (OFemale) through the digital platform OTaxi, it asks how ride-hailing platforms are impacting women’s employment futures. Using rapid ethnography, elite interviews and a survey, the article examines both the launch and expansion of the business alongside the experiences of Omani women as taxi drivers. The article excavates three gendered discourses of freedom, protection and job creation around platform labour and female labour market participation in the region. It argues that digital platforms such as OTaxi offer techno-fixes to fill gaps in the market and respond to the need to generate job opportunities for female citizens in the country. At the same time, women make use of these opportunities and interpret their experience in diverse ways that problematise the neo-liberal promises of innovative technologies, job flexibility and autonomy embodied in platform capitalism.

Defying the “Illiberal” Gig Economy: Coping Strategies of Freelance Domestic Workers in the United Arab Emirates

Froilan Malit — 2025-01-31

How do low-skilled migrant workers navigate restrictive gig economies in illiberal host states of the Global South? Despite the growing gig economy, scholars have yet to examine the linkage between the politics of the gig economy and migrant resilience in illiberal host states in the Global South. Using a single case study of freelance Filipina domestic workers in the UAE (N = 20), I argue that, despite facing legal and economic risks (penalties), freelance migrant workers have produced an informal freelancing visa system to contest the formal and hierarchical segmentation of the gig economy via three diverse strategies: co-optation, tapping and brokering. These evasive social coping strategies mirror their collective resistance against structural labour exploitation and reinforce their autonomous role in the social (re)production of community solidarity within informal gig economies. Overall, this study contributes to empirical and theoretical discourse on the politics of illiberal migration management and the gig economy by featuring female migrant freelancers’ complex social agency within illiberal gig economies in the Global South.

The Gig Economy and Its Impact on Women in Iraq

Hawra Milani — 2025-01-31

The gig economy has significantly transformed Iraq’s labour market, creating new opportunities for women while also exposing persistent inequalities. This paper traces the experiences of Iraqi women in the gig economy, drawing on both individual and collective insights grounded in the authors’ work in this context. These experiences reveal the dual nature of the gig economy: providing flexible work options while perpetuating vulnerabilities such as discrimination and economic insecurity. By situating our analysis within Iraq’s unique socio-economic conditions, including women’s low workforce engagement and infrastructural challenges, we contribute to a deeper understanding of the dynamics shaping women’s participation in this emerging labour market. The paper explores the types of gig work available to Iraqi women, alongside the structural barriers they face, such as limited digital infrastructure and inadequate legal protections. We conclude by highlighting actionable pathways for improving economic outcomes for women and fostering inclusive growth in the gig economy.

The “Daily Digital”: (Re)imagining Technology in Home-Based Women’s Gig Work in Egypt.

Laila Mourad — 2025-01-31

The gig economy is (re)shaping work and revolutionising the use of technology in everyday life. In Egypt, where more than 50 per cent of women’s enterprises are home-based, digital tools such as smartphones and social media are integral to managing informal labour practices. This paper challenges neoliberal development narratives by introducing the Daily Digital framework, a decolonial feminist lens that centres the relational and experiential dimensions of technology use. Unlike existing frameworks, it repositions the household as a site of innovation and economic agency, emphasising women’s creative strategies for (re)imagining technology and integrating it into their daily lives and work. Based on fieldwork conducted in Egypt in 2022 and 2023 with 25 home-based online food vendors, I demonstrate how women gig workers use their socially reproductive knowledges and relationalities to transform technology into a versatile tool for navigating and overcoming structural, material and social barriers, while (re)claiming and redefining their agency and mobility. This research contributes to feminist and decolonial scholarship by centring the lived experiences of women in informal economies and providing a new lens to theorise the intersections of technology, gender and labour. The Daily Digital framework offers valuable insights for (re)imagining gig work and advancing research and policy in the Global South.

Guest Editorial: The Gig Economy and Women Workers in the Middle East

Stella Morgana — 2025-01-31

What is the impact of the so-called gig economy on women workers in the Middle East? Does digitalisation represent a catalyst for female labour participation in the region or a burden leading to further financial insecurity and invisibility? How are ordinary women gig workers re-imagining their tech lives and challenging unwritten rules, patriarchy and lack of access to the labour market? Featuring articles analysing case studies in Egypt, Iraq, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, this special issue addresses the abovementioned questions, directly speaking to the academic debate on the global gig economies. Proving a regional and local perspective, it contributes to a more plural understanding of gig work in a multiplicity of contexts, practices and experiences. It investigates the relationship between the daily and the digital to explore the role of platforms in shaping female labour participation and women’s empowerment, as well as issues of precarisation and marginalisation. By proposing a collection of original and pioneering research on an understudied topic as applied to specific contexts in the Middle East, the special issue broadens the analysis of the so-called gig economy beyond a mere economic lens, bringing together multi-disciplinary insights and approaches from sociology, political economy and digital anthropology. It shows that online gig work is neither a crystallised nor monolithic dimension. Instead, platforms - in some instances - have become vectors of formalisation instead of leading only to informality, such as in the case of taxi driving app and home cooking/food delivery, where apps have enhanced more regulation as formality was not the norm before. Women gig workers are re-imagining their roles in their everyday practices of working from home, blurring the lines between the public and the private spheres. They adapt to neoliberal conditions of flexibilisation to sustain their needs in contexts where processes of labour informalisation have long permeated the development of labour relations.