To compete with well-funded private platforms, active government and municipal intervention are essential for platform cooperatives. This could be through procurement policies that give platform cooperatives preferential treatment over privately owned companies, research how laws around digital technology shifts need to be adapted, and designate public spaces to be used as platform cooperative hubs. Examples of this already exist: Kerala’s government has pledged to help establish 4,000 platform co – operatives over the next five years, and in 2016 Barcelona City Council launched Decidim, an open source platform that enables citizens to participate in democratic decisions, including setting up platform cooperatives.
“The key is a combination of robust regulation at the municipal level, plus a gradual expansion of cooperatives,” says Schor. “One possibility is cages owned by municipalities, which are big enough to compete with the private platforms – I would like to see a city or two try it.”
The city of Bologna, Italy, has been supporting cooperatives and workers’ rights for decades, and now its municipal institutions act as incubators and facilitators of ethical alternatives to the gig economy and its digital infrastructure. One of these is the food delivery cooperative Consegne Etiche (Ethical Deliveries), co-planned by urban designers, local shopkeepers, academics and representatives of performance workers’ unions early in Bologna’s Covid-19 restriction.
Consegne Etiche began delivering antiviral masks to residents’ homes, and then expanded to other necessities for people who could not leave the home. Riders are always paid a flat rate of $ 9 per hour. It now also delivers books to people who cannot reach the library, for which it receives 15,000 euros (about $ 15,600) in European funding annually, and to those who live in particularly economically and socially fragile areas of Bologna, for which it is another 15 000 euros per year.
But government-sponsored cooperatives are popping up elsewhere as well. To help drivers cope with rising fuel prices, the mayor of the Brazilian city of Araraquara helped set up the Coomappa cooperative, which worked with a traditional software company to build a ride-request platform. Rates start at R $ 2.50 (about 50 cents), and it pays managers 95 percent of the revenue, which means they make 40 percent more than they do on other platforms. With no rising prices and low cancellation rates, it is also popular among passengers.
Even with appropriate funding, it is not easy to find team members with the expertise to build the cooperative models and develop the digital tools. “Most people who learn how to build businesses build them for their own wealth, not to target social change and grow community prosperity,” says Forman. The Drivers Cooperative is calling for volunteers in the coming months, especially Big Tech employees who can donate their time and knowledge to help them grow. It plans to run a three-month fellowship, hoping to attract highly skilled technology workers who are among highly paid workers. They would earn a monthly allowance to learn more about the platform collaboration model in exchange for refining the application and providing wisdom on the inner workings of a larger, traditional technology firm.
As these projects grow, it will not be possible to apply the same success metrics as starting a Silicon Valley gig economy. Instead of the number of downloads, funding round value or profit, the focus is on whether it achieves its social and environmental goals and serves its member workers. “We do not have the constant stream of travel like Uber or Lyft, but we have launched hourly pay, and the next step will be benefits like paid time,” says Forman. “Refinancing drivers’ vehicle purchases means one of our members, who paid from $ 1,500 to $ 500 a month and can eventually take a vacation while another is married because he is no longer working full time.”