For as long as there has been a labour movement - where workers organise together to challenge their boss - there has also been an anti-labour movement. Bosses organise to weaken and ultimately destroy the power of labour, using an enormous range of tactics to do so. One of the most important tactics is the ability to co-opt sections of the workforce, convincing them that the bosses’ agenda is in their best interest and must be fought for, dividing the workers in two.

That tactic has arrived in the gig economy in Spain, and in a big way. In the battle over rights for food delivery workers (‘riders’), platforms have fostered an important ally among a section of the workforce, who have organised into numerous pro-platform associations. These associations are vociferously opposed to the Spanish Government’s Riders Law, passed last month, which starts from the presumption that all riders for digital labour platforms are employees not self-employed. The Law also gives trade unions access to the platforms’ algorithms.

In opposition to the Riders Law, this movement of pro-platform riders has organised demonstrations in cities across Spain. The ugliest elements of the movement have specifically targeted individual trade union riders and members of the RidersXDerechos movement, including through violent attacks.

Last month, the Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) published a report, ’Analysis of the political and social pressure of the distribution platforms’, which was co-authored by riders in the UGT. The report finds that this pro-platform movement has been brought to life by the platform companies themselves to defend their interests, that it is a type of astroturf movement to undermine pro-worker legislation and attack the pro-trade union movement of riders that has developed in recent years in Spain.

To discuss the report, The Gig Economy Project spoke to José Domingo Roselló, an economist at the UGT who was involved in research development on the report. The podcast includes discussion of:

2:09: How did the pro-platform movement of riders emerge and what are its main characteristics?

8:45: Why has this astroturf movement of riders become so important to the food delivery platforms strategy in Spain?

21:22: Why do some riders in Spain support the pro-platform movement?

28:12: The violence against the pro-trade union, pro-workers’ right movement of riders

34:33: Will the Riders Law improve the situation of riders in Spain?