Brief Considerations on the Reality of App Drivers

Abstract

This article is the result of a study conducted with application driver workers, for the purpose of scientific investigation on experiences in the context of service production. The objective was to find existing contradictions between the prescribed work and the real work, as well as to analyze in a critical perspective the management system used by these self-employed professionals and how the real work impacts the well-being and health of this worker. Two online interviews were conducted with two application drivers, both using this mode of production as sole survival income. The results of the qualitative analyzes presented three categories of analysis, being the work organization, due to precariousness and working conditions; prescribed work and real work, represented by the contradiction of the ideal of labor and the influence of the capitalist system; and the experiences of suffering and their coping strategies and subjective mobilization. Given the above, it was concluded that application drivers face a different reality than prescribed and through practical intelligence create strategies to face the daily work and cope with the suffering caused by the contradiction between the regulatory system of applications and real need for work.