The Contested Making of Gig Workers: A Comparative Ethnography of Global Food Delivery Platforms in Seoul and Toronto
Author: Youngrong Lee, lee1613@mcmaster.ca
Department: Sociology
University: University of Toronto, Canada
Supervisor: Cynthia Cranford
Year of completion: 2025
Language of dissertation: English
Keywords:
the gig economy
, worker subjectivity
, labour movements
, gender
Areas of Research:
Comparative Sociology
, Work
, Labor Movements
Abstract
My study offers a new comparative perspective by examining workers and unions in Seoul and Toronto operating under platforms owned by the same global corporation, Delivery Hero (DH). This Germany-based multinational corporation ran services in both cities, where gig workers at its subsidiaries—Foodora in Toronto and Baemin in Seoul—organized unions in 2019. While DH exited the Canadian market in 2020 following unionization, it continues to dominate the Korean market and actively engages in negotiations with local unions. These distinct local strategies, despite multinational convergence, raise key questions. What local social and organizational factors shaped the subsidiaries under DH’s efforts to compete in each city? Do the subsidiaries construct the same dominant ideal of the gig worker to justify their work organization? And how do local gig workers and unions challenge, reinforce, or reshape corporate ideals and conditions of work?
To answer these questions, I conducted 21 months of global comparative ethnographic fieldwork with gig worker unions in Seoul and Toronto between 2020 and 2023. My fieldwork included participant observation of union activities and everyday worker routines in both cities and 86 in-depth interviews with gig workers and key stakeholders, such as corporate representatives, civil society actors, and union organizers. I also drew on a range of secondary sources—including news articles, platform advertisements, and union communications—as I tracked the evolving trajectories of each platform across time and space.
Earlier literature portrays gig workers as either depoliticized, platform-shaped "micro-entrepreneurs" or precarious yet counter-hegemonic subjects. However, I argue that the construction of gig workers is a multifaceted process, shaped by the interplay between platforms’ organization and ideologies, workers’ intersectional subjectivities, and innovative union strategies. I conceptualize these dynamics as contested processes of worker subjectivity construction that have potential to (re)shape the organization of gig work. My findings demonstrate that the making of gig workers is shaped by the intersection of global labour regimes and local dynamics. Specific cultural, social, historical, and economic contexts influence a global platform’s ability to compete in each city, shape how heterogeneous workers engage with gig work, and affect the strategies unions develop in response. Analyzing these intersecting dynamics is essential to understanding the global gig economy.
