The construction of public policies for app workers in the face of the manifestations and resistance of the category in Brazil in the Sars covid2 pandemic (Atena Editora)

Abstract

In the field of public policy studies, there is not much research on the understanding of precarious work in digital platforms. The present communication aims to present some innovations in the field of development and implementation of public policies for app workers in Brazil. Starting from the observation of a demonstration of delivery drivers, motoboys and mototaxi drivers that took place in Niterói on March 23, 2021, we surveyed the demands and the institutional responses underway. We gathered reports on social networks, local newspaper reports, and interviews with three delivery drivers. Later, we made an attempt at comparison with the reports on the demonstrations of app drivers that took place elsewhere in Brazil on the same date. This work is part of a study on the set and characteristics of the precariousness that mark the everyday life of workers by delivery apps with emphasis on the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We hypothesize that the new bets on regulation and intersections with a new labor law are not the only way out of the dilemmas of platform work. At this moment, different and limited public policies are being discussed and promoted by governmental institutions throughout the country; but it is also in the field of public security, in the context of violence, that we observe how in Latin America initiatives belonging to public policies proposed by the State or initiatives of collectives with the objective of managing conflicts in public spaces result in important experiences to be researched.