RELATIONAL PLATFORM POWER: EVIDENCE FROM DELIVERY WORKER MOBILISATIONS IN HONG KONG AND TAIWAN

While research has examined how and why platform–mediated gig workers organise to resist algorithmic management, we know less about platforms’ strategies for undermining workers’ organising capacity. Theoretically, this paper builds on the power resources approach (PRA; Arnholtz and Refslund, 2024) to develop a relational account of how labour platforms cultivate distinct power resources to defend their interests. Empirically, I substantiate this framework by drawing on three years of qualitative research on delivery workers’ mobilisations in Hong Kong and Taiwan. I highlight how platforms in both cases deploy similar strategies to undermine workers’ organising capacity, including technological fix, labour oversupply, and the mobilisation of public values. Their impacts, however, are uneven across worker groups, reflecting differences in levels of platform dependence and socio–political contexts. By reconceptualising platform power as adaptive and relational, the paper advances our understanding of algorithmic management and platform labour unrest.