Generative Politics and Labour Markets: Unions and Collective Life in a City in Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic temporarily disrupted the operations of on-demand ride-sourcing digital labour platforms like Uber and Ola, severely impacting gig workers’ labour opportunities. In response, the Kolkata Ola-Uber App-Cab Operator and Drivers Union in West Bengal, India, mobilised an alternate socio-technical infrastructure by operating emergency transport and taxi ambulance services. Our ethnographic study explores how this initiative leveraged technologies to structure and coordinate hybrid sites of action and ‘generate’ a labour market without profit motive to support the public health infrastructure. Our paper highlights the significance of what we call the gig worker union’s ‘generative politics’ in creating resources to support workers and citizens, facilitating political action beyond protest politics, contributing to new counter-hegemonic formations, and shaping collective action centered around regeneration and care for the city and life under capitalism. We contribute to the HCI literature by offering insights to design alternate and participatory socio-technical infrastructures that challenge the hegemony of digital labour platforms.