Digital Work and the Struggle for Labour Representation: The Food and Grocery Online Retail Sector in Berlin (Germany)

Recently, food and grocery online retail (e-grocery) has experienced rapid growth and created new jobs. This chapter examines how workers in the quick commerce and non-quick commerce sector of this economic segment struggle for the representation of their interests and how their strategies draw on but also conflict with the institutionalised setting of labour relations. The focus is on labour in the German capital city, Berlin. The chapter discusses literature on management control strategies and workers’ resistance. Using a qualitative methodology, the results illustrate that while managements’ labour control practices differ in quick commerce and non-quick commerce, collective labour representation remains a challenge in both segments of the Berlin online retail sector. Moreover, our findings highlight that different geographical scales frame the conditions of workers’ collective representation. These scales are shaped by local labour market characteristics (high share of migrant workers) and the local business environment (vibrant start-up and venture capital scene), as well as by the national legal institutional industrial relations framework. The chapter ends with suggestions for future research and practice.