Spanish consumers and retailers have had a very difficult five years with the country in recession for much of this time. 2013 continued to be tough for shoppers and businesses alike. Although there have been signs of improvement and the country inched out of recession in the third quarter, the recovery has been very slow and tentative and it remains risk-bound. In the short term, people will continue to suffer as a result of high unemployment and public spending cuts.
Since the past few years the e-retail sector in India is registering an astounding growth. But what has been overlooked is the form of labour underpinning the delivery of our online ordered goods. This paper tries to fill this gap by... more
Since the past few years the e-retail sector in India is registering an astounding growth. But what has been overlooked is the form of labour underpinning the delivery of our online ordered goods. This paper tries to fill this gap by unraveling and analyzing the labour process characterizing the delivery of our online ordered goods-from the point of picking up the parcels from the office of the courier company by the delivery workers to the very point of delivery (the customer's doorstep). What then follows is an account of the form and nature of employment which is line with the globally rising trend of-now a hallmark of neoliberal capitalism-contracting and subcontracting the hiring of workers that is outsourcing of employment to the labour contractor. The flexibility of labour thus achieved has several dimensions and the resultant workforce endures a precarious existence. One of the prime factors driving shoppers to shop online apart from the huge discounts, is the attribute of convenience entailed in online shopping-in the form of goods getting delivered at the very doorstep of the customer. Essentially then, the entire edifice of e-retail is brought to its realization by the section of workers who work in the courier companies as the 'delivery workers'-the men (there are hardly any women1) who deliver the goods that we order online at our very doorsteps. We see these delivery workers on the roads: riding motorbike with extremely heavy backpacks irrespective of the extreme weather conditions-extreme heat or extreme cold or rain, racing against time and traffic so as to ensure timely and as fast as possible delivery of our online ordered goods. It is therefore important to decode the form of labour that characterizes the delivery of our online ordered goods, from the point of picking up the parcels from the office of the courier company for which the delivery workers work to the customer's doorstep. What follows then is an account of the form of labour entailed in the delivery of online ordered goods.
