Abstract
This article examines how workers and conventional trade unions can improve conditions in a gig economy setting by exploring couriers’ unionisation efforts at Wolt, a food delivery platform in Denmark. Typically, established trade unions have struggled to organise the gig economy. Yet, the example of a large and established Danish union, 3F’s, relationship with self-organised Wolt couriers provides an important counterexample to this trend and has implications for workers and unions alike. This rare organising relationship is analysed through an autoethnographic study that draws upon the researcher’s experience as a Wolt worker and organiser, exploring the class composition of couriers. This research proposes that the relationship between 3F and workers can be understood as semi-autonomous, bringing together an established union with self-organised workers as an initial and mutually beneficial step towards organising the sector.
Contextualising semi-autonomy between the Wolt Workers’ Group and 3F
The contemporary gig economy is defined as an ‘exchange of labour for money between individuals or companies via digital platforms that actively facilitate matching between providers and customers, on a short-term and payment-by-task basis’, and has received considerable media, policy, and academic attention (Lepanjuuri et al., 2018: 4). Some have argued that the rise of the modern gig economy could fundamentally change the nature of work (Sundararajan, 2016). While the scale of the gig economy is challenging to measure, most analyses evidence the sector’s substantial growth over the past two decades, particularly those working via platform applications (Woodcock and Graham, 2019).
With conventional unions typically unwilling or unsuccessful in organising the gig economy, workers have experimented with new forms of self-organisation to improve their conditions, especially in the logistics sector (Benvegnù and Cuppini, 2018). The reasons for this phenomenon will be explored in this article, yet the necessity to bargain for better conditions for those working in this sector is pressing. The gig economy removes traditional employee benefits seen in the standard employment relationship, such as paid holidays, income security (Berg, 2015), sick pay, and health insurance (De Stefano, 2016), leading to exhaustion, low pay, housing insecurity, lack of career advancement, and adverse effects on mental wellbeing (Kalleberg et al., 2000). Heightened by algorithmic management, those working for platforms do not realise genuine flexibility as is often claimed, but have tasks dictated to them as digitalisation removes bargaining power and increases surveillance in the labour process (Rani and Furrer, 2021). Concurrently, it is no secret that trade union membership has declined. By every recorded appraisal, trade union density, wage bargaining coverage, and the frequency of collective actions have fallen globally, with the conventional labour movement risking irrelevance if it cannot make substantial gains in growing precarious labour markets (Checchi and Visser, 2005).
Curiously, cooperation between the conventional labour movement and self-organised gig workers is disappointingly rare, despite the seemingly shared interests in strengthening representation. The article explores a relatively irregular case in these respects: a large and established union, 3F has made serious attempts to engage with and organise Wolt couriers, working for a food delivery platform in Denmark. In 2019, 3F developed a relationship with the Wolt Workers’ Group (WWG), an independent group of couriers organising to improve their pay and conditions. I was involved in co-founding the WWG while working at Wolt in 2019, prior to conducting this research. Customers ordered food from a restaurant, and Wolt’s courier partners, such as myself, were mainly paid per task after successfully delivering an order, supposedly as self-employed partners. 3F, one of Denmark’s largest unions, responsible for organising the distribution sector, entered negotiations with Wolt in 2020, which is untypical in the gig economy. 1 The workers at Wolt have played a leading role in this relationship, being the first platform workers in Denmark to organise themselves. 2 This cooperation led to multiple improvements in working conditions, including increases in pay, the provision of insurance, and the allocation of equipment. 3 Although not a focus of the article, employed self-organised couriers at Just Eat in Denmark also won a collective agreement through 3F by forming a stakeholder relationship of a similar nature (Ilsøe and Söderqvist, 2023). Thus, self-organised workers’ relationships with established unions warrant scholarly attention in the context of trade union revival. In practice, these unique stakeholder relationships allow self-organised workers to retain some internal democracy and strategy whilst receiving material support and guidance from the conventional labour movement, with a shared aim of trade union revitalisation in unorganised sectors. I conceptualise these relationships as semi-autonomy.
This research presents an autoethnographic workers’ inquiry to analyse the relationship between 3F, a conventional union, and the WWG, a self-organised workers’ collective. I demonstrate how this noteworthy relationship illustrates how successful unionisation strategies can be fostered by providing self-organised workers with resources, continuity, strategy, and access to collective bargaining, ultimately improving conditions in the gig economy (relevant for workers and unions alike). Therefore, this article begins by exploring this semi-autonomous relationship, arguing that conventional sections of the labour movement can be well-placed to assist workers in overcoming organisational barriers in this sector (Vandaele et al., 2019). After reviewing the literature, I outline class composition theory and its methodological implications. Interview and autoethnographic data are then presented, followed by a discussion that summarises the potential of a semi-autonomous organising relationship to improve conditions in the gig economy. It is therefore hoped that this article contributes to research on, and future workers’ inquiries into, the immanent tensions and possible contradictions of semi-autonomous organising, as well as the potential of such organising to realise benefits and gains for workers engaged in a range of struggles across the gig economy.
Based on this example, this article explores several research aims. This research primarily aims to understand the implications and potential efficacy of semi-autonomy as a stakeholder relationship practice that could contribute to union building in the gig economy, by combining the shared interests of the conventional trade union movement and self-organised workers. To begin understanding the facilitation of semi-autonomous relationships, this article will explore how and why a relationship with the WWG and 3F developed and examine the benefits and barriers for both parties in such relationships in the context of gig-economy union building.
Conventional unions and worker organisations in the gig economy
Conventional trade union strategies in the gig economy
Conventional unions have typically struggled to unionise the gig economy and often have limited success in fully incorporating these workers into their structures (Bessa et al., 2022). To understand the reasons for this, it is important to review the conventional frameworks in which these unions operate before analysing whether they can be integrated with self-organised workers’ strategies. For example, a pluralist understanding of gig-economy industrial relations (IR) highlights workers’ and employers’ differing interests and thus presupposes union representation and policy advocacy as mechanisms to address inevitable conflict and ensure effective business operations (Clegg, 1975; Harris and Krueger, 2015). These interests are particularly polarised in a sector typically composed of migrant and vulnerable workers (Van Doorn et al., 2023). Standing (2014) therefore conceptualises gig economy workers as part of a new social class, the precariat, who lack the protections enshrined in the standard employment relationship. In this vein, many unions appear to have adopted a pluralist logic in developing gig economy conflict-resolution strategies that aim to emulate a standard employment relationship, harbouring scepticism towards this new way of working. For example, the BASORI report evaluates the efficacy of strategies associated with this logic, which range from attempting to bargain collectively on behalf of workers and policy lobbying across seven European countries, typically with low success (Keune, 2013). In an industry characterised by the pursuit of legal loopholes, policymakers struggle to keep pace as the industry evolves (Aloisi, 2015). Although company-level collective bargaining has instituted some worker protections, legal barriers often preclude such agreements because of self-employed classification (Lamannis, 2023). In 2022, the GMB signed a ‘voluntary partnership agreement’ with Deliveroo in the United Kingdom, which introduced 2 weeks’ sick pay, funds, and offboarding protection (GMB website, n.d.). Whilst a positive step forward, the agreement was criticised for not challenging bogus self-employment and for bypassing workers organising with the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), thereby preventing them from gaining union recognition (Maccarrone et al., 2025).
Some unions emulate mobilisation strategies when attempting to unionise this sector, with some success. Based on radical understandings of IR, which centres on highlighting injustice, attributing this to employers, and mobilising workers to bargain for better conditions in strategies such as strikes (Kelly, 2012). However, this understanding usually focuses on gaining formal union recognition, aiming to emulate the post-war standard employment relationship in the gig economy (Atzeni and Cini, 2024). These frameworks also promote conventional unions as the primary vehicle for union revival in this sector, as the natural representatives of gig economy workers’ interests; they often promote full absorption into union structures (Lamannis, 2023). This may have been effective in post-war labour standards and manufacturing-based labour arrangements, where these theoretical understandings often derive, but have limited success in the gig economy. The reasons for this are complex. Internal dynamics within some elements of the conventional labour movement promote a strategy of eliminating the gig economy, explaining the motivation to fully engulf these workers into the standard employment relationship and into the conventional labour movement. The perception of a labour market duality becomes a barrier to gig economy organisations by protecting already represented workers and excluding precarious workers whom they perceive as a threat to insiders’ interests (Pons-Vignon and Freund, 2024). However, full absorption often fails, as conventional unions face external barriers to gig economy worker outreach, such as a geographically dispersed workforce, easy termination of self-employed status, language and cultural barriers, and predominantly migrant workforces (Gall, 2020). These barriers often lead to differing cultural perceptions and a lack of awareness of the conventional labour movement, making implementing mobilisation strategies proposed by radical IR theorists practically difficult (Cini and Tassinari, 2022).
Furthermore, the assumption that the conventional labour movement is the logical advocate for gig workers’ interests has received critical attention, given that less than 20% of gig economy protests are organised by established unions, yet initiated by self-organised workers (Bessa et al., 2022). Therefore, scholars conceptualising autonomous worker organising highlight the theoretical importance of the workers’ ability to organise independently (Atzeni, 2021). For example, self-organised workers at Deliveroo in the United Kingdom and Foodora in Italy demonstrate their successes (Tassinari and Maccarrone, 2020). Therefore, strategies for trade union revival that rely solely on the conventional union movement risk failing to incorporate important areas of emerging organisation.
Autonomous worker organising in the gig economy
The actors discussed in this review so far can be categorised. Under dominant IR frameworks, conventional unions are legally recognised, usually affiliated with national and international federations, and have recognition agreements in several workplaces. However, autonomous worker organisations are informally structured groups of workers, usually not legally recognised, with aims to improve their workplace (Vandaele, 2018; Webster et al., 2022). The autonomous worker organising literature explores some of the reasons why workers may reject the strategies purported by the conventional labour movement, demonstrating that gig workers are not merely passive victims of precarity but actively engage with and sometimes value aspects of platform labour, especially those who had negative experiences with management and inflexibility in more standard employment relationships, suggesting that a return to traditional employment is not uniformly desired (Woodcock, 2021b). In this vein, they sometimes choose to organise autonomously to improve conditions within the parameters of gig work (e.g. Deliveroo riders in Spain (Moares and Betancor Nuez, 2023)).
Effectively, the conventional labour movement risks viewing new technological changes as unfavourable barriers to union revival rather than opportunities for transformation (Chesta, 2022). The literature on autonomous worker organising, therefore, offers a critical departure by analysing developments in capitalism that have created the gig economy, to explore a path to resistance that utilises worker agency in their unique iteration of material conditions. Woodcock and Graham (2019: 28) explore nine distinct factors driving the gig economy’s growth, relating to technical, social, and political developments in capitalism. These are as follows: Platform infrastructure (technology), digital legibility of work (technology), mass connectivity and cheap technology (technology and social), consumer attitudes and preferences (social), gendered and racialised relationships of work (social), desire for flexibility for/from workers (social and political economy), state regulation (political economy), worker power (political economy), and globalisation and outsourcing (political economy and technology).
As Cant (2019) notes, precarity and per-task fees are not novel. They were present in the docking and building trades at the start of the 20th century. However, these unique factors enable a deeper analysis of how the gig economy’s newest iteration originated, using automation and technological advances to exploit workers, known as platform capitalism (Srnicek, 2017). Crucially, a nuanced understanding of the gig economy provides a basis for specific strategies to organise the sector, such as turning apps off, slow working, leveraging public narratives, and holding demonstrations outside major takeaways, which go beyond strategies rooted in conventional IR. This conceptualisation of the gig economy incorporates the differing and intersecting interests of female, migrant, and informal workers, critically departing from a radical IR perspective, which traditionally positions workforces as relatively homogeneous and geographically centred (Alberti and Joyce, 2023).
The development of specific organising strategies in the gig economy speaks to the return to organising, popularised in the United States (Gray, 2022). The model aims to inspire workers’ collective agency against a powerful target, such as an employer, ‘putting workers at the centre’ of an organising drive (McAlevey, 2016). However, whilst autonomous organising has arguably seen the most engagement and success in improving gig economy conditions, many of these organising drives face significant barriers and can be stifled by a lack of resources, high worker turnover, little protection from employer victimisation, and lack of access to legal bargaining frameworks, which established trade unions typically have access to (Tassinari and Maccarrone, 2017). As Virdee and Grint (1994) argue, it is not advantageous for autonomously organised workers to be wholly separated from the conventional labour movement and to forfeit the resources and strategic benefits they can offer.
The case for semi-autonomy based on the WWG and 3F
The above discussion highlights that, in a gig economy, established unions struggle to improve conditions due to strategic and external constraints. However, autonomous worker groups also struggle to overcome material and legal obstacles. This review has raised some important research gaps that this article aims to explore. It appears that the two parties have something to offer each other, and this collaboration transpired in the case of the WWG and 3F. The WWG, an autonomously organised, migrant worker group, had its own structure and internal democracy. They did not incorporate into 3F; instead, 3F supported them with resources and advice, otherwise inaccessible as an autonomous migrant union. This relationship improved pay and conditions. Indeed, a comprehensive map based on the Leeds Index of Platform Labour Protest indicates that an established union’s forming a relationship with self-organised gig economy workers is rare (Bessa et al., 2022), even if a few empirical examples do exist, one of them being the support provided by Unia to a collective of delivery workers in Switzerland (Pons-Vignon, 2025).
This case differs from other examples of gig economy organising. The IWGB, categorised as an independent union or ‘indie union’ in the literature, is defined as a small and usually non-affiliated union, legally recognised with a potentially small number of collective agreements (Però, 2020). Indie unions have made significant progress in improving this sector and developing organising strategies whilst retaining worker autonomy (Cant, 2019). This article does not diminish their important contribution to developing gig-economy organising strategies, but they often lack material resources compared with conventional unions (Vandaele, 2018). In addition, Denmark’s IR context differs from other European countries. Hostile to independent unions, focused on sectoral bargaining, only unions recognised by the state have the legal jurisdiction to bargain collectively with an employer under a sectoral bargaining agreement (Schnabel, 2020). Effectively, an autonomous workers’ group would be excluded from engaging in sectoral negotiations and implementing any gains from them in their workplace. Heggebø (2016) identifies Keynesian-style welfare and labour regulations (labelled the Danish welfare agreement) as providing security for workers. However, gig economy workers in Denmark rarely enjoy these benefits (Larsen et al., 2019).
Scholars highlight the need for collaboration between established unions to provide ‘stability, experience and knowledge’ to autonomously organised workers (Vandaele et al., 2019: 1), with Webster et al. (2022) highlighting ‘the emergence of union like organisations existing side-by-side with traditional unions to defend workers’ needs and interests in the digital economy in Indian and African contexts (p.117). In addition, research highlights how autonomously organised gig economy workers attempt to form relationships with external unions as part of their organising capabilities (Cini and Goldmann, 2021). Given the rare relationship between the WWG and 3F, this article examines the benefits and potential challenges of this relationship.
Workers’ inquiry
Technical, political, and social class composition
Autonomous worker organising literature sometimes utilises a class-composition theoretical framework to analyse workers’ experiences during social change (Cant, 2019; Woodcock, 2021a). This theoretical approach aims to use workers’ experiences with new technologies and their attempts to improve conditions to co-produce, or even entirely produce, knowledge (Woodcock, 2021b). Class composition theory focuses on workers’ technical, social, and political composition to understand new forms of political composition and the implications for organisation and resistance. Italian workerism derived the concept of technical composition from Marx’s understanding of the labour process in the capitalist mode of production (Marx, 1938). Workers’ technical composition directly informs opportunities for organising, actively shaping and resisting new labour processes rather than becoming merely passive recipients (Mitropoulos, 2005). This resistance is conceptualised as political composition, whereby workers organise through the social relationships of work, shaped by technology, management, and labour process design. In the case of the gig economy, workers’ resistance to the standard employment relationship throughout the 20th century in their desire for flexibility and autonomy partially created the demand for this working style; even if the relationship continues to be exploitative, this theoretical analysis understands workers’ role in shaping the labour process alongside external factors (Englert et al., 2020). As discussed, this phenomenon is evidenced by workers’ reluctance to return to the standard employment relationship due to negative past experiences, such as inflexibility and hostile management, and leads to the subsequent rejection of traditional strategies of established unions that seek to transpose such a relationship to the gig economy. Hence, this theoretical perspective enables analysis of workers’ demands and their potential to transform this industry (Cant, 2019).
Political composition is defined as the organisation of the working class into a force for class struggle via political and labour arrangements (Woodcock, 2021b). Effectively, workers choosing to join or form a relationship with a union or any other organisation is part of political composition (see the workers’ capabilities approach: Cini and Goldmann, 2021). Class composition theory does not assume that unions are the natural representatives of workers, unlike frameworks commonly used to research organising strategies, such as the power resources approach (PRA; Gallas, 2018). Therefore, this article utilises class composition theory to understand how and why autonomously organised workers form relationships with unions, and to assess the efficacy of their cooperation in organising strategies. In sum, the theoretical frameworks primarily facilitate analysis of understanding workers’ perspectives, and do not necessarily centre the conventional labour movement as the sole vehicle for revitalisation (Atzeni, 2021). However, the framework can still accommodate analysis of conventional labour movement strategies and behaviour in contributing to forming a part of workers’ political composition, an important aspect of semi-autonomy.
Contemporary workers’ inquiry researchers have expanded on the original writings to include social composition defined as workers’ interaction with institutions outside the workplace, such as housing, differentiation through migration, and welfare spheres, which can affect their organising and resistance (Battaggia, 2018). Arguably, Marx’s general formula for capital does not explore workers’ lives when they are not selling labour or consuming, as expressed by the M–C–M1 cycle (Cant et al., 2018). Therefore, technical and political compositions do not fully capture workers’ experiences outside the workplace in informing spaces for resistance. In a racialised and gendered setting such as the gig economy, the inclusion of workers’ cultural, leisure, and domestic activities is necessary, as well as their interaction with the aforementioned state institutions and the barriers and opportunities to organising these institutions create. Therefore, contemporary versions of class composition theory highlight how social and technical composition interact to form the political, as many factors attributed to the rise of the gig economy are social conditions rather than purely technical or political (Woodcock and Graham, 2019).
Workers’ inquiry methodology
The choice of class composition as a theoretical framework has methodological implications. As discussed, the theory aims to centre workers’ experiences and thus typically utilises a workers’ inquiry methodological approach (Fasulo and Panzieri, 2014). The methodology draws from Marx’s study of textile workers, centring workers’ experiences in his analysis of the labour process through ethnographic methods, such as fieldwork observation and interviews (1938). The methodology explicitly aims to support workers by highlighting their opportunities to improve conditions; it thus favours the co-production of knowledge between workers and academics, sometimes through co-publication (Aslam and Woodcock, 2020; Figiel et al., 2014). Co-producing knowledge can create a power imbalance between researchers and workers, with researchers contributing to knowledge production with little lived experience in the labour process (Woodcock, 2021b). For practical reasons, this research design is often unavoidable and is still preferable to excluding workers from knowledge production altogether. However, I was a worker and organiser in the gig economy, which has several advantages for exploring a semi-autonomous organising relationship.
Employed by Wolt as a bicycle courier in Copenhagen from October 2019 to August 2020, and a co-founder of the WWG, the researcher perspective and the worker perspective are synonymous. This type of workers’ inquiry prevents management from gatekeeping knowledge production and allows for complete immersion in the field to understand technical, social, and political composition, because of my unique relationship to the field as a worker and now a researcher. Moreover, my role as a worker organiser provides a unique perspective on this semi-autonomous relationship, from its formation to its development. Many of the meetings discussing reasons and nuances of WWG and 3F affiliation were private and inaccessible to external researchers. Therefore, this workers’ inquiry is ethnographic and autoethnographic in nature, as it uses the researcher’s perspective and the perspectives of other workers (Boyle and Parry, 2007).
Other autoethnographic workers’ inquiries have examined unionisation in the gig economy, most notably Cant’s (2019) pioneering work. By entering Deliveroo as a courier to conduct a workers’ inquiry, he participated in the labour process and organising efforts and identified successful organisational strategies. This research differs slightly: working at Wolt for purely financial reasons and subsequently taking on research in reflection, rather than gaining entry for research purposes, provides a robust understanding of the lived experience of gig economy workers. Van Maanen (2011: 220) notes that ‘in the field, one must cut their life down (to the bone perhaps). In many respects, fieldworkers must remove themselves from their usual routines and social contexts’. As a non-researcher when working for Wolt, this process is unnecessary. Research becomes an exercise in reflecting on genuine lived experience and providing an authentic account of this experience. Therefore, this workers’ inquiry forms part of a reflective (auto)ethnographic extended case method whereby the researcher reflects on time spent in a particular field they initially did not intend to research (Burawoy, 2009; Wadham and Warren, 2014). As Boyle and Parry (2007) identify, autoethnography should be a reflective experience that draws links between the person and the organisation, a valuable method for exploring the relationships between the WWG and 3F.
To conduct this workers’ inquiry, this research utilises semi-structured interviews in addition to the aforementioned autoethnography, with participants anonymised to protect their identity. To fully explore the workers’ political composition, this research includes interviews with 3F representatives who worked closely with Wolt workers. In total, there are the perspectives of six couriers involved with the WWG (including my own), a 3F staff member (Freja) and a 3F volunteer and unionised courier (Thor). 4 All the participants were based in Copenhagen, where the WWG originated, bar Marina, who was based in Aarhus, where a second branch was founded. The interviews were conducted after being approved by the University of Manchester’s ethical review for human research participants, and whilst every care has been taken to remove identifiable details, participants have given informed consent regarding potential risks (although these are low because none currently work for Wolt at the time of publication). Semi-structured interviews allow participants to expand on topics they identify as important whilst still covering nine questions related to technical, social, and political class composition so that ethnographic accounts avoid becoming narrative (Ellis et al., 2011). The sampling used an intersection of genders, ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, and cycle and car couriers to highlight different experiences within the workplace and to examine the class composition of various couriers, allowing the perspectives of those who have engaged heavily with the organising process to be central in identifying effective organising techniques relevant to political composition. Participants are therefore close to the organising effort, as four of the six worker organisers interviewed were members of the WWG committee.
The extended case method has received critical attention from positivist scholars, who argue that the researcher becomes closer to particular groups to enter the field, highlighting the experiences of these participants over the wider group; thus, results are not generalisable and so lack reliability (Duneier, 2011). However, as discussed, a workers’ inquiry explicitly supports and promotes workers’ resistance, so a choice was made to sample those closest to the unionisation process rather than aiming for a general overview of the broader workplace or management’s opinions (Wadham and Warren, 2014). In effect, access to and knowledge of key organisers becomes a strength in understanding semi-autonomous dynamics, as purposive sampling aims to establish replicable organising techniques, an example of a creative methodology that considers research aims (Gallas, 2024a, 2024b). In addition, research predicated on large, supposedly representative samples of gig economy workers often relies on privileged access to large-scale data, generally through management, which introduces biases (Woodcock and Graham, 2019).
Unionisation at Wolt
This data set first presents unique aspects of our technical and social composition and how they directly translate into organising opportunities. This analysis is necessary to understand the latter part of this data set, which focuses on our political composition and how our relationship with 3F added value to our organising.
Technical and social class composition
Wolt couriers developed effective strategies to turn traditionally perceived organisational barriers into organisational advantages. Including an autoethnographic perspective in this inquiry supports the interview data to offer my unique insight as a co-founder into the efficacy of these strategies.
Organising conversations and petitions
As discussed above, the inquiry demonstrated that bogus self-employment of Wolt couriers is utilised to depress wages (Berg, 2015), contradicting the ethos of the Danish welfare agreement (Larsen et al., 2019). As Ben explains in his interview, ‘we are definitely employees and not self-employed’ because tasks were ‘decided for us’, meaning ‘our wages would drastically change’ depending on recruitment cycles and the volume of couriers competing for tasks. As ‘Farhad’ ( pseudonym; interview, 2021) summarises, ‘I get the worst of both worlds’. Wolt allows couriers to log on to the app and work freelance, paying 45DK per task (US$6.8) or 120DK for a shift (US$18.2 an hour), the standard minimum wage in Denmark. However, shifts are few, and when released, disappear in under a minute due to the high volume of workers. As Farhad notes, this leads to app crashes, meaning couriers receive no shifts or guaranteed income for the week. ‘Maria’ (pseudonym; interview, 2021) explains that couriers must work at peak times between 11 am and 1 pm and 4 pm and 8 pm, because at other times it was virtually impossible to earn 160DK per hour, which Wolt advertises as the hourly average. She continues, ‘it’s not certain if [wages] can be 45DK or zero in one hour’. This technical composition does not give workers true flexibility, as working freelance leads to precarity and, in real terms, low pay. ‘Paula’ ( pseudonym; interview, 2021) quipped that ‘flexibility has a cost, and the cost is very expensive’. Indeed, Paula’s interview echoes my own experiences, in which I found myself accepting any available shift in an attempt to overcome extreme income precarity, often at the expense of other commitments.
To corroborate the reviewed literature regarding negative impacts on gig economy workers, ‘Ben’ (pseudonym; interview, 2021)describes meeting ‘couriers who have gotten injured who are then financially insecure and can’t pay their rent’ sometimes for months at a time, facing homelessness because they are not entitled to sick pay like workers in the standard Danish employment relationship. ‘Ahmed’ ( pseudonym; interview, 2021) highlights, I had a couple of accidents where I got hit by a car. . . If I didn’t work, I couldn’t get any money, so I had to dumpster dive for food because I had no money left after paying rent. . . even though I was working very hard for that company.
Whilst some of the reviewed literature cited bogus employment and pay-per-task fees as organisational barriers (Zwick, 2018), the inquiry shows how couriers could utilise their technical composition to unionise. Wolt workers adapted strategies from previous gig economy worker enquiries, such as approaching workers in hotspots whilst waiting for orders (Cant, 2019). However, as Ben notes, whilst ‘there are hotspots, people don’t really congregate around them very much’, largely because Wolt workers cannot reject orders like Deliveroo riders can. Thus, we identified the best places to engage with workers, and our technical composition presented numerous opportunities. As Ahmed (pseudonym; interview, 2021) explains, bicycle couriers are ‘being told to stand outside in the cold and rain because restaurants don’t prioritise our orders. . . we have to wait, and if we don’t like it, we can quit or get fired’. Farhad also notes that ‘as a car courier, I just wait in my car because I cannot pay to park my car legally’. Our technical composition enabled easy access to agitated couriers who could easily be recruited to the group. Organising conversations in this setting became frequently successful in gaining petition signatures, as couriers’ agitation led to action, a method purported by McAlevey (2016).
As Ben elaborates, We’ve been talking to a lot of couriers outside of McDonald’s, and we find that many people say they like the self-employed model, but after chatting with them for 10 minutes, they can see the value in what we are doing. Another good thing is the petition to get better insurance. A petition feels very successful in uniting people to a common cause that everyone can agree with.
Indeed, the petition was essential to bring workers to a common cause, echoing mobilisation theory strategies, but highlighted how many gig workers did not wish to return to a standard employment relationship as an employee and would disengage if they felt the sole aim was to become an employee under a collective bargaining agreement.
The pandemic presented a further organising barrier. Ben noted, ‘[I]t’s been hard in the lockdown because we can’t physically meet’. Almost all participants expressed reservations regarding online organising, primarily through management-controlled Facebook channels, with face-to-face organising conversations resulting in higher worker engagement. However, the pandemic also presented an opportunity for our petition by expanding our ‘invisible organisations’, which are usually unrecognised and under-analysed in traditional IR frameworks. We spent substantial time networking online with workers in other cities and countries where Wolt operated, thereby applying pressure on the company and increasing engagement with the petition. It included specific worker concerns in the pandemic, like the introduction of insurance, leading to an increase in engagement. After months of WWG campaigning and petitioning, Wolt introduced accident and COVID-19 insurance for riders.
Algorithmic management and slowdowns
Wolt’s support staff assist workers with logistical problems necessary to support our technical composition and app-based work. In practice, however, support becomes the voice of management, speaking to literature on algorithmic management and platform capitalism (Srnicek, 2017). As support staff are employees with associated protection, an uneven power dynamic is created. Support staff’s behaviour caused contention among couriers, including myself, as we were frequently disrespected by the same support staff members, with few consequences. Farhad explains that ‘when people hide behind these apps, they act kind of differently. . . it is much better if people stand face to face and communicate’. Maria notes that communication is one-sided because they can call you, but ‘you can’t directly communicate with them’. Working for Wolt gave the impression that couriers were disposable because of a substantial labour surplus. Therefore, when couriers experienced rudeness, management did not consider this as significant as inappropriate behaviour in traditional employment settings. However, Ben explored ways to slow production based on our technical composition regarding support staff’s supervision, stating that ‘I could deliver food and not say that I’ve delivered it and have a break’ because ‘there are too many of us for support to monitor’. Being involved in autonomous WhatsApp Groups made me aware of loopholes that were implemented collectively, demonstrating workers’ capacity to create innovative ways to resist autonomously.
Informal networking and strikes
The cultural, ethnic, migration, and socio-economic backgrounds of gig economy workers are a commonly cited barrier for established unions in organising this sector (Alberti and Joyce, 2023). However, the inquiry demonstrated how these factors can present an opportunity for resistance as a part of workers’ social composition. In Denmark, gig economy workers are likely to be migrants and use platform apps to enter the labour market, where being unable to speak Danish is a barrier (Larsen et al., 2019). Ben notes that there ‘was a 2-tier system’ of Danish and non-Danish workers. Farhad highlights that ‘there is a better chance to get involved with people from Wolt if they have the same nationality as you’. He explains that most of his friends at Wolt are therefore Iranian, as this is his home country. Similarly, Paula explains that ‘I know many couriers, as I am from Argentina’ explaining that there is ‘a sense of community amongst the [Latin American] riders who help each other’ with various issues such as taxes or insurance. Ben and I are both English, and we met through mutual English friends at a social event. When Ben informed me that he had applied to be a Wolt courier, I invited him to a meeting with the newly formed WWG. Social and cultural networks become crucial to meeting other couriers and potential organisers in a gig economy. In effect, we utilised social composition to overcome barriers in our technical composition that are commonly cited (Cant, 2020), such as no geographical location.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Maria noted that pre-existing networks via WhatsApp became even more relevant as social spaces were closed, exacerbated by the low levels of integration seen in Denmark (Liebig, 2007). WhatsApp groups corresponding to nationality are easy to access, only requiring one contact. As evidenced by how easy it was to connect nationality-based WhatsApp groups when organising a large strike, this can involve large sections of the workforce in the organising process. Notably, over 100 Wolt workers went on strike in February 2021 over a cut in the pay-per-task fee and removing the weekend bonus . The spontaneous strike, organised on WWG and Spanish-speaking WhatsApp channels connected by Paula, overcame language barriers in organising in this sector. She remarked, ‘the strike is about the pay cuts primarily, but of course, there are many other things that couriers want to improve’ (2021). We utilised cultural networks to organise a strike over a unifying issue, and the technical conditions of being self-employed meant that the workers did not need to vote on strike action but could do so spontaneously and strike relatively quickly. Freja argues that ‘old methods are being made new’, echoing mobilisation theory (Kelly, 2012). Indeed, our unique technical and social composition directly translated into a strike, which saw the reintroduction of some bonuses as a compromise from management.
Political composition
A crucial aspect of the WWG’s political composition was our semi-autonomous relationship with 3F. This section will discuss why a relationship with an established union occurred and was useful, as well as potential limitations.
Workers’ decision for semi-autonomy
As a co-founder of the WWG, my autoethnographic perspective offers insight into the group’s exact nature of formation, unavailable to any external researcher. It is essential to highlight how and why this relationship occurred during the WWG’s formation. Feeling dissatisfied with aspects of this working arrangement, particularly a struggle to get shifts, I approached 3F; I was informed that several other couriers had also approached 3F. We were assigned a union officer, Freja, to assist us. However, Thor highlights that 3F ‘has no membership category’ for self-employed gig economy workers, which requires ‘inventive’ organising strategies for both parties. In retrospect, it would have been impossible for 3F to completely absorb us, despite a clear motivation from sections of the union to incorporate Wolt into sectoral bargaining agreements in the distribution sector. Therefore, Freja suggested solidifying our already emerging autonomous group by naming ourselves and subsequently affiliating with 3F. As she explains, My role is to support and give good ideas. The WWG and 3F have the same interests. It is to get good working agreements and a collective agreement. It’s important that the WWG is supporting the union [3F]. My role is to talk and speak into the Danish model of collective agreement and solidarity. In 3F, we have a system where you make union branch clubs, like the scaffolders. They are part of the union, but they have their own club; they are organised by the union and the club. (Freja [pseudonym; interview, 2021])
She connected four couriers over a meeting in the 3F office, many of whom already were in nationality-based networks of couriers looking to unionise, which included myself, Ahmed, and Farhad. I quickly introduced Ben to the group. Crucially, we formulated a strategy of anonymously leafleting to organise a first meeting because previous attempts to organise ‘didn’t amount to anything’, as Ahmed explains, I believed in unionising, but within a group of people who were [previously] trying to organise, [somebody] sent screenshots to management about them meeting with 3F. So, they all received phone calls from management who told them that if they did that, they would be fired. (Ahmed, 2021)
Very quickly, Paula’s Latin American WhatsApp contacts, those who responded to our leafleting, and riders from our home countries were absorbed into the group, speaking to our social composition. Paula remarked that 3F and the WWG were ‘very helpful to her organising’ as they provided advice and connections with a wider, predominantly English-speaking group. Individually, gig economy workers approached 3F, which connected them, enabling the formation of WWG. This practical step was the first taken by 3F. This step seems obvious, but established unions have sometimes turned away gig economy workers on initial approach (Pons-Vignon and Freund, 2024). Here, 3F’s networks connected the WWG, initially based in Copenhagen, to couriers in other cities, such as Maria in Aarhus. Maria explains that she and another courier approached 3F in Aarhus and connected in a similar way. The capacity of 3F as a networking actor beyond our existing social composition in developing workers’ political composition cannot be understated.
As there were no formal membership requirements to join the WWG, I created a Facebook group to consolidate Wolt couriers who wanted to attend meetings and discuss strategies, and it was explicitly made clear that we are affiliated with 3F. Two months after the group’s founding, management called me directly and asked to meet with the WWG. The newly formed committee agreed that it would be advantageous to involve 3F in the meeting due to their knowledge of Danish IR, so Freja attended. The WWG was structured with a committee to devolve work, including a communications officer, chair, and 3F liaison. Crucially, we made a decision in meetings and via our own communication channels that affiliation to 3F was in our interests due to them providing us with ‘a lot of resources’ like rooms, legal advice, financial support, an organiser, and contextualised IR knowledge, ‘meaning we could print things, have a space to meet and build media links which was very useful’ (Ben).
In sum, the group’s formation was an amalgamation of individual approaches and community networks that mutually agreed that affiliation with 3F was in our interests. Some founders of the WWG also sought the assistance of other outside organisations before 3F, with limited success: Socialist groups did not show any interest because a large project like this would drain all of their resources. 3F was the biggest union. They had resources. The unions in Denmark are so bureaucratic. You can’t just say, ‘yes, I am a union’. (Ahmed)
Ben observed that ‘3F have gotten better and realised that we need to be approached slightly differently to factory workers’. Similarly, Maria felt that ‘something is actually being done, and 3F is on Wolt workers’ side’. Therefore, 3F’s relationship with the WWG provides more benefits to workers, especially in the initial organising phases. With a high turnover of organisers and workers typical of the gig economy, 3F provided a member of staff, Freja, to oversee the process and ensure the group’s continuation if worker organisers leave the workplace. Without this continuity, the WWG would have likely folded, based on the trajectory of previous organising groups that Ahmed described. Indeed, the literature review highlighted that high turnover of workers is often a barrier to organising the gig economy (Tassinari and Maccarrone, 2017).
Negotiations
One area of contention in the relationship was that other negotiations, aimed at incorporating gig-economy platforms into distribution-sectoral bargaining agreements, took place between Wolt and 3F, yet the WWG was not invited. However, we were consulted regarding our demands prior to the negotiation. Farhad argues that I think the cooperation has been beneficial for both sides. . . but sometimes 3F is benefiting from us more than we are benefiting from 3F. 3F sometimes doesn’t give us the freedom to go forward by ourselves. They should have presented us in their negotiations and said that the WWG would be in the negotiation.
Ahmed also echoed this argument and suggested that workers should have been present in the negotiations, arguing that ‘every time they met with Wolt, no workers were there . . . I love 3F. They have shown me a lot of support, and I love Freja, but I have to be objective’. This perspective shows the limitations in the relationship with 3F in that the autonomous worker group was not included in all negotiations and democratic union structures. This dynamic also speaks to the earlier contradictions reviewed in this article, between balancing 3F’s aims, which were often closer to the radical IR frameworks of securing sectoral bargaining and ending bogus self-employment, and our aims, which were a direct improvement in conditions whilst retaining some employment flexibility. However, without exception, all the organisers felt that affiliating with 3F was fundamentally productive and demonstrated sufficient shared interest to facilitate successful stakeholder relationships.
As Ben speculates how this relationship could develop in practice, I think it’s important for there to be some autonomy for the workers . . . it’s all well and good signing a collective agreement, but if there is no way to defend it, it’s in a weak position. Getting a collective agreement, but having an independent group, is a way that it can be made accountable in the workplace that a traditional model cannot in these industries.
Also, in a second interview with Ben (pseudonym; interview, 2025), recounting his experiences as a paid 3F organiser, he comments on the collective agreement signed with Just Eat in October 2021 during his tenure: We [the WWG] started organising, so Just Eat likely felt that the bogus self-employment model was coming to an end and signed a CBA. They still have that agreement, a bunch of reps, and a really big [autonomous] workers club . . . it’s been a big success.
He explains that the organising effort at Just Eat was led by those involved in the WWG, an autonomous Bangladeshi workers’ club. Very similar stakeholder relationships with 3F were utilised. This interview highlights exciting prospects for semi-autonomy when forming collective agreements, but Ben also notes that the technical composition of Just Eat was slightly different to ours, as there are less couriers at Just Eat and their office workers also have an agreement with another union.
Workers’ clubs
3F provided not only resources in terms of organisers, but also accountants, tax advisors, and a meeting place to run a worker centre, offering services that Wolt and the Danish state would not assist with due to the self-employed status. Effectively, the WWG, with the assistance of 3F, could respond to the problems arising from the technical composition, expanding the political composition due to increased worker engagement. In effect, we formed a worker centre (Fine, 2006).
Being present at the tax and insurance advice drop-ins, I saw couriers whom I had not encountered before, which facilitated conversations about the union and increased petition signatures. An autoethnographic perspective enriches this inquiry by offering firsthand accounts regarding how the worker centre increased engagement over time. For example, I witnessed workers attending drop-ins for tax and accountancy advice, subsequently attending other meetings, joining the WWG communication channels, and signing petitions. As Thor questions, How do you organise individuals without any common denominator between them, except working for the same company, doing more or less the same job?
In this case, by utilising common issues that workers face arising from technical and social composition to motivate engagement in a workers’ club.
3F as an external networking actor
Developing connections to the media and the Danish labour movement put pressure on Wolt to enter negotiations. The type and extent of media coverage that the WWG achieved would have been unfeasible without 3F’s influence and some integration into the Danish labour movement. As ‘Thor’ (pseudonym; interview, 2021) noted, ‘Being on DR [Danish Broadcasting Corporation] Sunday evening and full page in Politiken, Weekendavisen, Information is pretty huge in Danish standards’. The news coverage of WWG activities was extensive, prompting me to be approached by multiple members of the Danish public who expressed support following these 3F-arranged news appearances. Equally, several WWG committee members and I attended Danish Trade Union conferences through 3F, which increased awareness of our organisation’s efforts, especially amongst other distribution workers whose sectoral bargaining unit we aimed to join. 3F, as a networking agent, placed our needs on the agenda of a broader group, which was important for our political composition in the Danish IR context.
In sum, the data show that 3F helped the WWG overcome organising barriers related to their technical and social composition in areas where the literature demonstrates that wholly autonomous worker organisers usually fail due to, for example, 3F’s material resources, local IR advice, collective/sectoral bargaining access, and media connections (Tassinari and Maccarrone, 2017). This data set also highlights unexplored benefits, such as organisational consistency in periods of high worker turnover and tax and immigration advice. This relationship undoubtedly benefitted our political composition, and the trajectory of autonomous worker organisers in this workplace without the support of an established trade union indicates a likelihood of failure.
Conclusion: The implications of semi-autonomy
The workers’ inquiry demonstrated how semi-autonomous workers’ relationship with 3F was a critical aspect of their political composition and organisation. 3F assisted the WWG in overcoming barriers in technical composition, such as legal protections, access to collective bargaining frameworks, media platforms, material resources, consistency in organising, and local knowledge, resulting in increased engagement in organising efforts, improved conditions, security from dismissal, and a contribution to trade union revival. This empirical example responds to calls by scholars such as Vandaele (2018), who argue that established unions could offer unique benefits to self-organised gig-economy workers.
However, these benefits may come at a cost. Established unions are member organisations that must operate for the benefit of existing members. Realising short- or long-term benefits from partially incorporating self-organised workers into their structures can be contentious. 3F is a large union with the primary objective of forming collective sectoral-level bargaining agreements, as evidenced by the WWG’s non-attendance at broader negotiations (3F website, 2019). Therefore, the tactics that 3F encourages must align with these governing principles, with Freja highlighting that the WWG must support 3F’s aims for affiliation to be viable. However, the primary aim of the WWG is to improve conditions. This tension speaks to contradictions in the literature, in that gig economy workers do not necessarily seek a return to the standard employment relationship; rather they seek to shape and change technological advancements (Cant, 2019). Nevertheless, 3F and the WWG shared the same prevailing aims. They worked in collaboration to pursue goals that did not necessarily contradict one another, as a sectoral agreement would substantially improve the pay and conditions of Wolt couriers. This is a divergence, as autonomous groups that are not interested in joining a sectoral bargaining agreement would perhaps not have the support of 3F, although in a Danish context, this would be contrary to their own material interests. Bringing Wolt into a sectoral bargaining agreement is necessary to improve wages in line with the wider sector, and 3F advising the WWG of the IR landscape was a crucial outcome of our political composition. This led the WWG to adopt a collective agreement as a goal whilst pursuing other campaigns directly related to specific courier grievances, which 3F supported.
In sum, the advantages of this relationship for autonomous organisers, especially in the early phases of organising, when most such groups fail due to a lack of resources, local IR knowledge, and limited protection from dismissal, outweigh the loss of complete autonomy. Equally, this article shows that retaining some autonomy rather than full integration into a conventional union (impossible in this case) fosters accountability and independence; for example, workers proposed and organised the strike via autonomous communication networks. Yet, workers can assess whether a relationship of this nature is advantageous in their specific situation, or whether it is preferable to be wholly autonomous or to align with an indie union, based on the context and industrial landscape in which they are situated (Cini and Goldmann, 2021).
As highlighted, semi-autonomous relationships in the gig economy remain rare (Bessa et al., 2022), yet many gig economy workers approaching established unions report a lack of interest in their struggles (Atzeni and Cini, 2024; Cant, 2019). This data set shows how a conventional union utilised the existing courier networks and achieved a revival in this sector with only a part-time organiser. Utilising existing autonomous worker organisations removes the workload and expense of staff-intensive organising models, which can be a barrier to implementing organising models in precarious sectors (Lucio and Stuart, 2009). A semi-autonomous relationship meant that 3F did not need to overhaul its structures to accommodate the WWG. Thor noted that no membership category existed for us. However, the WWG encourages our members to join and pay fees to 3F, meaning we had access to some wider 3F structures, such as conferences where we could promote our interests internally, meaning that WWG needs were heard and balanced with the wider distribution sectoral bargaining agreement, although as a new organising effort, our power within 3F was arguably weak. This power could grow as the group expands, yet the WWG, with its own structure and internal democracy, was satisfied with reducing our access to 3F structures, as the inquiry showed full immersion and lobbying within 3F was not a primary aim of the WWG. This relationship could therefore be a creative solution to overcome a lack of engagement in this sector, raising the possibility of ‘streams of membership engagement’ for autonomous workers to established unions (Lamptey and Debrah, 2019: 68), but could risk entrenching divisions between ‘core’ and precarious workers within internal union democracies (Pons-Vignon and Freund, 2024: 16).
The initial case study highlights the mutual advantages of this relationship and its potential to address the difficulty that conventional unions face in organising this sector. The main contribution of this article is drawn from the workers’ inquiry into the relationship between WWG and 3F. It highlights the potential of such organising to realise benefits and gains for workers engaged in a range of struggles across the gig economy. The argument contributes to the existing literature on gig economy organising and unions, but further research is needed on other examples of semi-autonomous organising.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Ian Bruff, whose support, patience and guidance were invaluable to this project. Dr Bruff’s commitment to making academia accessible to those with lived experience of industrial struggle was fundamental in bringing this project to fruition. I would also like to thank Dr Jamie Woodcock for his unique and important insights into this work, derived from his valuable contribution to the labour movement. Additionally, I would like to thank the staff from the Global Labour University and the People, Work and Employment department at the University of Leeds for their support and mentoring of me personally and in the concept of semi-autonomy.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.