Spatial and temporal implications of the platformization of work in the logistics chain: From Rotterdam to Madrid

Abstract

Through the analysis of workers’ experiences at different points in the logistics chain, we aim to demonstrate how platformization is a phenomenon with homogeneous and common impacts across different stages, and how algorithmic control shapes a differentiated citizenship within urban space. Our findings show that the platformbased management of logistics work produces concrete spatial arrangements of workers and specific perceptions and management of time. This management relies on workers being in a state of latent availability, conditioning both their time management and their location for the performance of tasks. The contemporary logistics system, based on the reduction of delivery times, relies on platform systems and algorithmic management that intensify workers’ precarious conditions, shaping their access to urban space. This approach allows us to conclude that the platformization of logistics—based on the provision of logistics services by a precarious workforce that is permanently available in both space and time—has been generating unequal spatialities among subjects. Based on research involving more than 50 interviews with logistics chain workers in the Netherlands (Spanish migrants working in the logistics sector in the Dutch region of Brabant and posted truck drivers from Spanish companies operating in Central Europe) and in Spain (delivery workers, mainly migrants from Latin America), this analysis offers a transnational perspective on precarization in Europe.