Trucking (un)limited: The impact of digital platforms on labour in production networks of logistics

Helwing, Veronique; Verfürth, Philip; Franz, Martin Article Trucking (un)limited: The impact of digital platforms on labour in production networks of logistics ZFW - Advances in Economic Geography Provided in Cooperation with: De Gruyter Brill Suggested Citation: Helwing, Veronique; Verfürth, Philip; Franz, Martin (2023) : Trucking (un)limited: The impact of digital platforms on labour in production networks of logistics, ZFW - Advances in Economic Geography, ISSN 2748-1964, De Gruyter, Berlin, Vol. 67, Iss. 4, pp. 177-188, https://doi.org/10.1515/zfw-2021-0032 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/333178 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ZFW– Advances in Economic Geography 2023; 67(4): 177–188 Veronique Helwing, Philip Verfürth*, Martin Franz Trucking (un)limited– the impact of digital platforms on labour in production networks of logistics https://doi.org/10.1515/zfw-2021-0032 Received: 30 August 2021; accepted: 14 April 2023 Abstract: For many years, struggles over value capture have been taking place between different actors in the logistics sector, creating ever more pressure for workers in traditional activities of logistics. New actors, in the form of digital business-to-business (B2B) platforms, which are proliferating especially in the freight transport sector, are further challenging the already contested field. Based on the Global Production Networks (GPN) approach, this study addresses the question of how B2B platforms affect labour in production networks of logistics, and what labour agency practices are emerging in the face of advancing platformisation. The study draws on interviews with various actors operating in the road freight transport sector in Germany. The results show that digital B2B platforms, due to their intermediary function, have a direct impact on the inclusion and exclusion of actors involved in production networks of logistics, and induce not only a race to the bottom in terms of labour conditions, but also produce increasingly contingent geographies of logistics. This paper contributes to the literature on platforms by examining previously neglected B2B platforms and shedding light on the different ways that labour in global production networks can be affected by new agents, such as digital platforms. Keywords: digitalisation, freight transport, Germany, Global Production Networks, intermediaries, labour agency, platformisation, subcontracting 1 Introduction The increased emergence and growing dominance of digital platforms in various social spheres and economic sectors– often termed platformisation or the platform economy– has shaped several academic discourses in recent years (e. g., Kenney & Zysman 2016; Srnicek 2017; Lehdonvirta et al. 2020). From an economic geography perspective, the discussion revolves mainly around how capitalist relations of production manifest themselves in the platform economy and to what extent platforms are able to restructure hitherto dominant production systems (e. g., Langley & Leyshon 2017; Grabher & van Tuijl 2020; Peck & Philips 2020; Herb & Neiberger 2021). In particular, this strand of literature discusses the aspects of value, governance and power that may take new forms through the proliferation of digital platforms. While digital platforms often define themselves as mere digital mediators or enablers of interactions between different user groups, it is becoming apparent that they are actively shaping contemporary economies as “non-neutral intermediaries” (Grabher & van Tuijl 2020: 4). The impact of the platform economy on labour is also examined in some rather critical geographical and social science studies. The focus is primarily on digital platforms that mediate microtasks to a crowd of more or less independent contractors– often described as the gig economy (e. g., Ettlinger 2016; Graham et al. 2017). This new kind of platform-mediated work is in many cases accompanied by responsibilities and risks being transferred to workers, and their limited ability to represent their interests vis-à-vis platform operators. At the same time, platform operators can exercise control over workers and often concentrate power in production networks (Graham et al. 2017; Vallas & Schor 2020). The focus of human geography studies on platformisation and labour relations, has so far been primarily on platforms operating in urban contexts (e. g., Bauriedl & Strüver 2020; Graham 2020), and on cross-sectoral investigations of the gig economy (e. g., Wood et al. 2019; Anwar & Graham 2021). However, contextualisation of the respective industries or production networks in which digital platforms operate, is often missing. Moreover, the focus of existing studies on the effects of platformisation is *Corresponding author: Philip Verfürth, Institute of Geography, Osna brück University, Seminarstraße19 a/b, 49074 Osnabrück, Germany. E-mail: Philip.V[email protected], https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0755-5856 Veronique Helwing, Institute of Geography, Osnabrück University, Seminarstraße19 a/b, 49074 Osnabrück, Germany. E-mail: Ver[email protected]. https://orcid.org/0009-0008-2459-6300 Martin Franz, Institute of Geography, Osnabrück University, Seminarstraße19 a/b, 49074 Osnabrück, Germany. E-mail: Martin.Fr[email protected]. https://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-1187-5166 2023 Open Access. © 2023 the author(s), published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 178 Veronique Helwing, Philip Verfürth, Martin Franz: Trucking (un)limited predominantly on platforms operating in business-to-consumer (B2C) markets, while less attention has been paid to business-to-business (B2B) platforms– especially when it comes to labour aspects– although they are also gaining importance in many sectors (Grabher & van Tuijl 2020). As a result, there is a lack of deeper understanding of how production networks and the geographies of work are being transformed by the increased proliferation of digital platforms in specific contexts. We aim to address this research gap in this paper and take into account the calls for a differentiated investigation of platform models from an geographical, labour-orientated perspective (Grabher & van Tuijl 2020; Kenney & Zysman 2020; Bearson et al. 2021). To do so, we use the logistics sector in Germany as an empirical case, specifically the road freight transport sector, where digital platforms, as in many other countries, have been proliferating since around 2015 (Oliver Wyman 2017). Our study addresses the question of how digital B2B platforms affect labour in the freight transport sector and what labour agency practices are emerging in the face of advancing platformisation. To answer the research question, interviews were conducted with representatives of platform operating firms, various transport firms as well as individual and organised worker representatives in Germany. In our study, we consider logistics respectively logistical labour within the Global Production Network (GPN)1 framework (e. g., Henderson et al. 2002; Coe et al. 2008) and focus on the related debates about labour agency (e. g., Coe & Jordhus-Lier 2011; Coe 2015; Cumbers 2015). The GPN approach is particularly suitable for examining the actions and relationships between actors that influence the production of certain goods or services, from a spatial perspective. It is thus a useful framework, firstly for drawing attention to the geography of labour and considering labour as an elementary component and agent in the production of goods and services (e. g., Herod 1997; Cumbers 2008; Franz 2010), and secondly for a better geographical understanding of the production-related effects and potential power imbalances brought about by digital platforms (Howson et al. 2022). By connecting digital platforms and labour within the GPN framework, the study not only contributes to the aforementioned (geographical) literature on the platform economy and platform labour by addressing up to now neglected B2B platforms, but also contributes to GPN-related research on logistical labour and labour agency (e. g., Coe & Jordhus-Lier 1 In the following we use the acronym “GPN” to refer to the GPN approach, and “global production networks” to refer to the empirical phenomenon (see Yeung & Coe 2015: 42). 2011; Gutelius 2015; Newsome 2015) by examining how geographies of work are shaped by new intermediary actors, namely digital platforms. Especially in logistics, a sector already characterised by power asymmetries and precarity, the emergence of digital platforms raises the question of what consequences this development will have for the already contested field, and what implications arise in the context of labour agency and capital-labour relations in a broader sense. The following two sections present the theoretical framework of this study: First, we present conceptual considerations on logistics and logistical labour in GPN. We then explain how platforms operate and the consequences that can be expected for labour, while also providing an insight into the conceptual considerations of labour agency from a GPN perspective. After the methods are presented, the empirical findings are explained in three sections. Following our conceptual considerations, we first discuss the role of digital platforms in production networks of logistics and the way in which they thus affect labour. We then present the actual consequences for labour conditions in the transport sector, before we discuss the development of labour agency in the context of increasing platformisation. Finally, we draw a conclusion and give an outlook on further research on platformisation from a geographical perspective. 2 Labour in production networks of logistics Logistics– understood as “the process of planning, implementing and managing the movement and storage of raw materials, components, finished goods and associated knowledge from the point of origin to the point of consumption” (Coe 2014: 225)– plays a fundamental role in the global production and circulation of goods, and has therefore been of importance to the discipline of geography for many years. Logistics can be considered in two different ways within the GPN framework: logistics as a global production network in its own right, and logistics as a component in global production networks of client sectors (Coe 2014). This analytical distinction “allows the mutual constitution of the two sets of networks and the directions of influence between them to be highlighted” (Coe 2020: 5). While geographic research on logistics initially focused on supply chain management perspectives, more critical geographical studies have emerged in recent years that put a greater focus on the power structures and social relations within logistics (e. g., Newsome 2015; Coe 2020; Veronique Helwing, Philip Verfürth, Martin Franz: Trucking (un)limited 179 Verfürth et al. 2023). One of the main topics of these studies, which mostly come from the field of political-economic geography, is labour in logistics. Based on empirical examples from warehousing, distribution, and transportation, several studies show that work in logistics is essentially characterised by power asymmetries and labour conflicts (e. g., Gutelius 2015; Gregson 2017; Jordhus-Lier et al. 2019; Fuchs et al. 2022). According to Newsome (2015: 38), a crucial reason for this is the “battle over value capture”, which takes place between large industry or retail firms and so-called third-party logistics providers (3PL), acting as intermediaries2 between client and logistics production networks (Aoyama & Ratick 2007; Coe 2021). Those battles are leading to an increasing efficiency and cost pressure among logistics providers, and to the “subordination of labour and work degradation” at the end (Newsome 2015: 42). Along with this growing pressure, as well as the widespread subcontracting and interchangeability of logistics services, precarious work arrangements and segmentation of workers increase, thus reproducing the uneven geographies of capitalism (Gutelius 2015). Intermediaries in logistics include not only 3PL but also labour market intermediaries, such as temporary staffing agencies, which are particularly common in warehouse logistics (Gutelius 2015). Gutelius (2015) uses the case of these agencies to illustrate the powerful position intermediaries can hold in GPN. By applying the disarticulation approach (Bair & Werner 2011), she shows that intermediaries play an important role in the inclusion and exclusion of actors involved in logistics, thereby affecting working conditions. This is one of the many studies that deal with the role of intermediaries in global production networks (e. g., Franz et al. 2014; Coe & Yeung 2015), and in some cases specifically take a labour perspective (e. g., Barrientos 2013; Raj-Reichert 2020). In this context, it is emphasised that intermediaries often do not play a neutral, passive role but, on the contrary, they take an active role in shaping GPN. With this in mind, the following conceptual section addresses the characteristics of digital platforms and the possibilities of labour agency. 2 Coe and Yeung (2015: 49) describe the function of intermediaries as follows: “intermediaries bridge and connect multiple actors in a global production network, allowing them to engage in value activity of mutual benefit.” 3 Platformisation and labour agency in logistics Technological developments and digitisation, as well as automation processes, are increasingly important for the logistics sector. As a result, a large number of new digital business models have emerged in various areas of logistics in recent years, above all digital platforms (see Hofmann & Osterwalder 2017; Oliver Wyman 2017). Based on the definition by Grabher and van Tuijl (2020: 4), we understand digital platforms “as programmable digital infrastructures controlled by platform operators who, as non-neutral intermediaries, curate the interactions of interdependent complementors and users.” They permeate more and more areas of the economy and society, often with the self-claim of simplifying interactions for users or making them more efficient and acting as neutral matchmakers (Grabher & van Tuijl 2020). Prominent examples, such as Uber and Airbnb have shown that digital platforms can evolve into powerful actors in a relatively short time, and restructure existing production and work processes. Therefore, various authors also use the terms “platform economy” or “platform capitalism” (e. g., Kenney & Zysman 2016; Langley & Leyshon 2017; Srnicek 2017). With the beginning of platformisation, and especially with the growing gig economy, the following characteristics of platforms have been highlighted: So-called network effects are seen as essential for the functioning of platforms, meaning that the utility of the platform service increases with the increasing number of users (Grabher & van Tuijl 2020). This is one of the reasons for the monopolisation tendency and power concentration of digital platforms, which are often also fuelled by high venture capital investments in platforms (Langley & Leyshon 2017; Peck & Philips 2020). Another characteristic of digital platforms is seen in the fact that in many cases they operate “asset light.” That is, the platform operators generally do not own the goods required for the transaction mediated by the platform (Grabher & van Tuijl 2020); rather, they tend to outsource responsibility to downstream actors. This has a particular impact on individual workers who receive jobs via platforms. They are often not in a formal employment relationship but act as independent contractors (Aloisi 2016; Graham et al. 2017). This has been criticised, particularly in terms of labour and social law, and has led to a number of legal disputes in the past– for example in the field of food delivery services (Degner & Kocher 2018). Algorithmic management– which is considered a trait of digital platforms– is also critically discussed, as this often represents a black box of the platform operators, thus greatly limiting the transparency and 180 Veronique Helwing, Philip Verfürth, Martin Franz: Trucking (un)limited participation of platform users and other actors (Graham et al. 2017; Wood et al. 2019). In this context, Richardson (2020a, b) emphasises that the algorithmically organised work in platform settings involves increased contingency and thus understands platforms as “flexible spatial arrangements” (Richardson 2020b: 458). The lack of possibilities of participation in common platforms is in line with the self-regulatory practices of platform operators. In many cases, their position as intermediaries enables them to determine the rules for their users, and the existing legal framework for regulating platform activities is often inadequate (Cohen 2017). Graham (2020: 4) therefore describes platforms as “apparently too big to control, too new to regulate, and too innovative to stifle.” These features of dominant platform models create a number of tensions, as indicated, and raise the question of how different actors, and in particular, workers whose jobs depend on such platforms, react to these powerful digital intermediaries. In early studies on platforms and labour– which primarily deal with gig platforms– it becomes clear that, above all, the lack of protection for individual contractors requires action, such as legal regulations (e. g., Aloisi 2016; Graham et al. 2017). Thus, a number of protests of gig workers have taken place, demanding, for example, the acknowledgment of their employee status or minimum salaries. The question of how the often geographically dispersed gig workers can be mobilised, and how individual contractors can represent their interests, is also discussed in this regard (Johnston 2020; Tassinari & Maccarrone 2020). Hardaker (2021: 5), for instance, sees a general difficulty in resolving the power imbalances associated with platforms, as platform operations often involve “unawareness, unaccountability and non-transparency.” The research on platform-related work and the possibilities of designing platforms in the interest of users and workers has so far focused primarily on gig platforms such as Uber, Foodora and co., which are also very present in public and media (e. g., Johnston 2020; Wells et al. 2021). A differentiated investigation of the various platform models, such as platforms operating in B2B relations, is rare so far. In the case of B2B platforms, for example, it could be expected that aspects relevant in B2C platforms, for example, the lack of protection for individual contractors, would play less of a role, since orders are then mainly placed with other firms and probably not with individuals. Also, the question of mobilisation of workers would then be different. With the aim of contributing to a more differentiated picture of platforms and labour, we draw on the concept of labour agency (Coe & Jordhus-Lier 2011; Cumbers 2015). This concept is related to the labour-orientated research on global production networks (e. g., Cumbers et al. 2008; Rainnie et al. 2011) and can thus be coupled to the aforementioned conception of logistics within the GPN framework. According to Coe (2015) and Cumbers (2015), a basic distinction is necessary between labour agency as an ever-present part of capitalist production, and agency as an attempt to “shift the capitalist status quo in favour of workers” (Coe & Jordhus-Lier 2011: 216). While early research on labour agency focused primarily on collective worker actions emanating from unionisation, a much broader understanding has emerged over time, with different forms of worker action and modes of organisation (Coe 2015). An attempt to distinguish worker agency strategies goes back to Katz (2004). According to her, agency can be differentiated into resilience as “everyday coping practices,” reworking as “efforts to materially improve the conditions of existence,” and resistance as “direct challenge to capitalist social relations” (Coe 2015: 174). Related to labour agency and the aim of changing capital-labour relations in favour of workers, are power relations between actors, for instance in global production networks. A typology of power in the Global Value Chain approach (GVC), which is also suitable for the GPN framework, stems from Dallas et al. (2019). Based on the categorisation of direct and diffuse transmission mechanisms and the dyadic and collective arena of actors, a distinction can be made between “bargaining power,” “demonstrative power,” “institutional power” and “constitutive power” (Dallas et al. 2019: 673). In order to examine power relations in the context of labour, there are approaches that are even more specific. A widely used approach to the conceptualisation of labour power goes back to Wright (2000) and distinguishes between workers’ “structural power” and “associational power.” Structural power can be understood as “power that results simply from the location of workers within the economic system,” and associational power as “the various forms of power that result from the formation of collective organizations of workers” (Wright 2000: 962). Building on this, Schmalz et al. (2018) developed the Power Resources Approach (PRA), which assumes that certain power resources can be mobilised to successfully defend worker interests in capital-labour relations. In addition to structural and associational power, “institutional power” as “securing influence in institutional set-ups” and “societal power” as “coalitional power and discursive power” are considered power resources (Schmalz et al. 2018: 116). A number of contributions from critical geography and critical labour studies deal with labour power or labour agency, specifically in the logistics sector (e. g., Alimahomed-Wilson & Ness 2018; Jordhus-Lier et al. 2019; Nowak 2021). Central to this is the debate about the extent to which Veronique Helwing, Philip Verfürth, Martin Franz: Trucking (un)limited 181 logistics workers can use their position or structural power in supply chains, to exercise power and assert their interests. Relatively prominent in this discussion is the so-called “choke point” thesis (e. g., Alimahomed-Wilson & Ness 2018), with the idea that labour power can be exercised when workers or insurgents use their strategic position at choke points, and disrupt the closely timed flow of goods through collective action. However, approaches that attribute labour agency to specific worker action and the mobilisation of particular power resources, are partly also criticised for ignoring structural constraints and the broader political economy (Coe & Jordhus-Lier 2011; Cumbers 2015; Nowak 2021). These contributions call for labour geography and research on labour agency, to take into account the broader political, economic, and social spatiotemporal contexts in which workers are situated, and which are ultimately crucial to shifting the capitalist status quo. To analyse the “constrained agency,” Coe and Jordhus-Lier (2011: 228) suggest reflecting on “global production networks, state institutions at various scales, the social relations and associational life of the community, and intermediary agents in the labour market.” This is one more argument for the investigation of intermediary digital platforms and the effects on labour (agency) by using the GPN framework. 4 Method To answer the research question of how digital B2B platforms affect labour in the freight transport sector, and what labour agency practices are emerging in the face of advancing platformisation, we examined the road freight transport sector in Germany. To collect empirical data a total of 273 semi-structured interviews were conducted via video calls in the period 2020–2021 with the following groups of actors: – representatives of platform operating firms in the freight transport sector, in order to understand how business models work and what their relationships with upstream and downstream firms looks like, – representatives of freight forwarding and carrier firms of different sizes, to understand how platform operators influence their practices, – individual workers and organised labour representatives from the logistics and freight transport sector, to understand the effects of digital platforms and related developments from the perspective of workers, and to explore potential counter initiatives. 3 In total, requests were sent to 125 potential interview partners. Of these, 27 were willing to be interviewed as part of our research. The main questions of the interviews were adjusted according to the respective actors: interviews with platform operators focused mainly on questions about the business model, the functioning of the respective platform and the relationships with other actors within the production networks. The interviews with representatives of logistics firms from the transport segment were mainly related to questions about the use of digital logistics platforms and changes in the transport sector, particularly with regard to labour. More specifically, the interviews with drivers and workers’ representatives from the transport sector, focused on questions about the everyday practices of transport workers and how they deal with potentially changing working conditions. The selection of the platforms is based on intensity sampling (Flick 2009: 122). As a first step, we compiled a database of 78 digital logistics platforms located in Germany through desktop research. This database includes information about the platform’s specific business models, their locations and offered services as well as the actors they connect. The majority (40) of these platforms operate in the road freight transport segment. The German road freight transportation market is characterised by low entry barriers and a high degree of fragmentation due to a large number of micro-enterprises. This opens up the possibility for logistics platforms to connect a large number of market actors (Stölzle & Häberle 2021). Due to the strong competition among transport firms and often precarious working conditions of transport workers (Gregson 2017; Zanker 2018), we expected platforms in the area of road freight transport to have a particular impact on existing structures, especially on labour in logistics. Against this background, we contacted all of the 40 digital platforms from the list that offer services related to road freight transport in Germany in a second sampling step. In total, interviews with representatives of 9 digital logistics platforms were included in the empirical study. A small number of these platforms are established firms (2), but the majority are start-up firms (7) that have only been in existence for a few years. The respective platforms are located in Berlin (2), Munich (2), Hamburg, Dortmund, Cologne, Leipzig and Erkrath, mostly offering their services throughout Europe. It is noteworthy that many of the startups are financed by large corporations from the logistics sector, but also from sectors such as retail and automotive, as well as by various investment firms. The interviews were analysed according to Mayring’s (2000) qualitative content analysis, in which the text material– in our case the interview transcripts– were paraphrased and abstracted in line with the research question. Deductively developed categories from the theory were expanded during the analysis by inductively derived cat- 182 Veronique Helwing, Philip Verfürth, Martin Franz: Trucking (un)limited egories as needed, so that previously unknown variables could be sufficiently taken into account. The results presented below thus constitute an interplay of theory and empirically derived data. Quotes from the interviews have been translated from German into English for this article. 5 Digital platforms in production networks of logistics Before we explain the effects of digital platforms on labour from a structural perspective in this section, we outline the activities and the role of platforms in production networks of logistics. The digital platforms operating in the German logistics sector focus primarily on the road freight transport sector, and generally promise to make freight management more efficient and achieve higher utilisation of transportation vehicles. Primarily, these platforms serve as software providers that attempt to address the logistics sector with varying nuances. The degree of software solutions varies from platform to platform. There is a continuum between online freight exchanges, as mere marketplaces, and digital freight forwarders, which thus act as logistics firms themselves. However, as depicted by our interview partners, the aspirations of the platform operators are moving in the direction of acting less as mere marketplaces and more as value-added services providers, for example, by expanding the service spectrum and developing further automating processes, such as through the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence. One interviewee describes the future vision of the platform firm he works for as follows: “The vision is of course to get this artificial intelligence onto the platform. […] that it is already shown to our shippers or that the system already knows what the shipper needs before the shipper actually knows it himself” (interviewee from a platform operating firm). The users connected via the platforms are, on the one hand, shippers of freight, specifically firms of various sizes from industry and retail, and, to a lesser extent, large 3PL firms. On the other hand, there are the carriers, which tend to be smaller freight forwarders and transport firms, that ultimately execute the orders mediated or generated by the platform. Digital platforms in logistics can accordingly be seen as intermediaries which, like 3PL, are important both in global production networks of client sectors and in logistics production networks (c.f., Coe 2021). The neutrality often anchored in the platforms’ self-image is not always true, as the results show. Our interviews indicate that many digital logistics platforms are rather orientated towards the interests of the large shippers from industry and retail, who are primarily concerned with outsourcing logistics, reducing freight costs and digitally mapping work processes. Only a few platform operators take the demands of carriers into account, and guarantee minimum freight prices, for example, so that wage costs can be adequately covered, or relief is provided for transport workers, who are under increasing pressure to perform more work in less time. Thus, in logistics too, digital platforms act as “non-neutral intermediaries” (Grabher & van Tuijl 2020: 4). A definitive feature of digital platforms in logistics, and a differentiation from conventional 3PL, is the enormous concentration of information and data that platform operators can generate about their users, as one platform operator states in the following quote: “We already have a very good insight into the market through the assignments that run through the platform, the prices that are set, and through the data that we generate there” (interviewee from a platform operating firm). Digital platforms, especially online freight exchanges, develop their role as information providers primarily through the price transparency they create for shippers. For carriers, the digitally mapped price comparison for freight transport services ends in enormous competition and consequently, efforts to undercut. A trade unionist depicts the price-based mediation of freight transport services as follows: “The platform mediates orders at the best possible price. This means for the firms that there is of course total price transparency. So, if you demand a higher price, you cannot compete” (interviewee from a trade union). In this way, platform operators exert an influence on who participates in production networks on what conditions, and who is excluded from it at the same time, namely carriers who demand higher freight rates. Disarticulation processes induced by intermediaries, as observed in warehousing (Gutelius 2015), are promoted in the freight transport sector by digital platforms. Due to their digital operations, platforms can mediate freight orders across territorial borders quite easily. In the interviews it became clear that it is particularly difficult for small carriers which demand higher prices in order to maintain labour and social standards, to obtain orders via platforms, where a large number of carriers offer freight transport services at lower prices and consequently do not comply with these standards. One interviewee who worked for a platform operating firm, and subsequently founded a platform himself that guarantees Veronique Helwing, Philip Verfürth, Martin Franz: Trucking (un)limited 183 fair freight rates, describes the common platform model as follows: “As a Spanish entrepreneur, I can choose any firm from Estonia without any problems. The disadvantage I see is that I have no overview of how these firms work according to social standards” (interviewee from a platform operating firm). As a result, many carriers find themselves forced either to accept the conditions of the platforms and lower freight rates, which at the same time means a restriction on labour standards as well as lower wages, or to look for other ways to receive freight orders outside the platform. However, it is almost impossible for small carriers to escape the price pressure in the freight transport sector, which is not least created by freight mediators such as digital platforms. A carrier reports: “A customer once said to us– we did get the order back after a few talks– but the procurement department simply said ‘yes, you deliver quality, but I can’t measure quality in euros‘” (interviewee from a transport firm). This statement already points to the next observation: carriers and transport workers are easily interchangeable for shippers using platforms, or for platforms acting as digital freight forwarders themselves. This is not only due to the multitude of carriers that are concentrated on platforms, but also due to the general trend towards commoditisation of logistics services (Coe 2021). This shift, in which services become widely available, as well as interchangeable, and thus where price competition predominates, is accelerated by digital platforms. The ability to easily interchange carriers via platforms, is thus producing increasingly contingent geographies of logistics. The results demonstrate that digital platforms, as intermediaries, already hold a powerful position in production networks of logistics and shape the overall structure of freight transport labour. How the increased interchangeability of carriers due to platformisation affects labour conditions is further explained in the next section. 6 Downward pressure on labour and transferred responsibilities The “battle over value capture” in logistics expressed by Newsome (2015: 38), is taken to the extreme through the proliferation of digital platforms. This applies not only to the battle between the intermediary 3PL and new platform agents, but also to the battle between the various downstream logistics providers. The digital mediation of freight transport services via platforms facilitates further subcontracting in this field and, at the same time, limits the potential bargaining power of carriers due to extended value chains. The responsibility for ensuring that minimum wages and social standards are complied with is usually passed on to the carriers by platform operators through contractual regulations. However, it is well known in the sector that these standards can only be met above certain freight rates and that illegal, self-exploitative practices are often used among carriers when prices fall below a certain level. A former employee of a platform operating firm that operated as a digital freight forwarder, but has since been closed, reports: “[…] it’s always quite easy to transfer everything to a subcontractor if there are any labour law problems or something like that. In the end, we didn’t really have anything to do with it, but if, let’s say, customs would have come to the yard and checked things, then surely something would have been revealed” (interviewee from a platform firm). The platforms, or the shippers using them, act with the knowledge that there is always a carrier who can provide the freight transport service at an even lower price. Since there are no legal minimum freight rates, the differences between transport workers in terms of labour standards can be used by platform operators to capture value in production networks of logistics. In this way, the uneven geographies of capitalism are reproduced. The consequence of the price war for carriers is that, especially in the case of professional drivers, the workload increases significantly, as the following quote demonstrates: “Because of the fact that the prices are going down, I am forced to load more, and so the driver who ultimately does this, […] has a lot more to do. Because he doesn’t just load once in the morning at eight and then take a break and unload once again the next day. Instead, they have to drive at their limits in terms of the legal framework, that is the driving times and the driving hours” (interviewee from a transport firm). As a result, the conditions of work in the road freight transport sector are increasingly precarious. Carriers often adopt their own ways of dealing with the low prices paid for their work. Often, however, these practices are not compatible with the labour and social laws common in Germany. The employment relationships with subcontractors are particularly difficult to understand. For example, although many firms have their headquarters in Germany, they often hire workers from Eastern Europe, and do not guarantee them the rights they would be entitled to under German labour 184 Veronique Helwing, Philip Verfürth, Martin Franz: Trucking (un)limited law. An interviewee from a former platform operating firm puts it as follows: “[…] we only had subcontractors who were located in Germany. How they got their drivers, there are certainly very dubious things happening there. But at the end of the day, we always made sure, at least contractually, that everything was somehow correct” (interviewee from a platform operating firm). Despite the developments described above, it is difficult for trade unions, for example, to build a link to the actions of platform operators in the freight transport sector. That is because many transport workers, who ultimately carry out the transport services, do not know how the orders were assigned. In general, little seems to be known about how digital platforms operate in that field, and what consequences may arise. A trade union representative explains the situation as follows: “The danger is not seen. Many think that such a platform is just like a website […]. But this business model and the potential threat, is not recognised at all” (interviewee from a trade union). Thus, the societal or discursive power of transport workers seems to be relatively low, especially when it comes to B2B platforms. Much happens under the radar, so we share Hardaker’s (2021: 6) observation that “Platforms often remain unacknowledged as such, since many processes are neither directly visible nor perceived as platform related.” It must also be acknowledged, that many of the structures described do not only occur with the use of digital platforms but represent pre-existing industry-wide trends in the road freight transport sector. Many of the phenomena, for instance the decreasing freight rates, can also be observed in freight mediation by conventional freight forwarders. Nevertheless, digital business models such as platforms seem to be increasing the pace of these developments, and the structures are becoming even more obscure due to the black box-like practices of these firms. In addition, platform operating firms in logistics are in a special position and perform a distinct form of intermediation due to the information asymmetries that arise from the concentration of user data. 7 Constrained labour agency in the freight transport sector As shown in the previous section the “subordination of labour, and work degradation” in logistics (Newsome 2015: 42) is further exacerbated by platformisation, and the accumulation of capital by platform operating firms in the transport sector runs simultaneously. This leads us to the question of what action workers and allies take to deal with or counteract this development. Based on Katz’s (2004) distinction, the empirical evidence from the road freight transport sector allowed us to observe mainly resilience as well as a few resistance and reworking practices. Resilience can be seen as the everyday coping strategy of transport workers in dealing with the increasing workload. However, these practices are increasingly on the edge of legality and do not necessarily represent an improvement of working conditions in terms of applicable standards, but can rather be understood as subjectification mechanisms of workers (e. g., Bröckling 2007). Based on our empirical material these are, for example, the disregard of rest and driving times, the use of several workers for the same vehicle, or the manipulation of tachographs in order to circumvent rest times as well as the disobeying of cabotage4 regulations. One interviewee, who was working for a platform operating firm, reports on the practices of subcontractors: “Maybe the boys arrive here and have been on the road for 26 hours in a long-haul sprinter with two or three people, sleeping in turns […]. That’s not very nice at all. And it’s actually not allowed, but unfortunately, it’s common practice” (interviewee from a platform operating firm). Resistance practices– which are rather connected with the intention of improving working conditions in the transport segment– could be observed in this study in the form of an interest grouping of small transport firms and professional drivers. The association, which is now registered, was initially a rather loose interest group that organised demonstrations to draw the attention of politicians and the public to the grievances in the road freight transport sector, for instance the price pressure caused by freight mediators, such as platforms. Traditional forms of collective organisation of workers, in the form of works councils and trade unions, are not very common in the German road freight transport sector. Some trade union representatives interviewed even describe the transport segment as an antiworks council and anti-union milieu. They see the reasons for this in the autonomy and individualist aspirations of many professional drivers as well as in the fragmented 4 According to the Bundesamt für Güterverkehr (2022: n. p.), cabotage is the “carriage of goods by road for hire or reward with a place of loading and unloading in a State, known as the host Member State, by an operator who has neither a registered office nor an establishment in that State” (own translation). In this regard, provisions of the European Union are binding, which, among others, determine that cabotage transport must be carried out within three days.