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Hello Toronto!

Join us on March 21 at the Faculty of Information (4th floor) for a talk by Prof. Aakash Gautam (University of Pittsburgh) on community-based design projects.

The talk will reflect projects on anti-trafficking efforts in Nepal & support for incarcerated individuals in the US.

We partnered with JSA Delhi & Delhi Science Forum to organize a health camp for gig workers & other outdoor workers affected by New Delhi’s severely polluted air (marked by alarming AQI levels). Dr. Sayan Maharatna (AIIMS) led health checkups, providing medical guidance.

In the 2024 CSCW, we hosted a Special Interest Group (SIG) session: ''Organizing for More Just and Inclusive Futures: A Community Discussion'' to discuss critical questions and emerging possibilities of disability justice in CSCW & HCI.

Here is our extended abstract:

doi.org/10.1145/3678...

Traditional trade unions aren’t obsolete—they’ve evolved and continue to play vital roles. Tech partially helps in this process. Their resources and strategies remain crucial in supporting workers and adapting to new challenges.

Worker precarity within DLPs is more than a data/information asymmetry problem. Logic of coloniality & extraction inherent in political economy of labor regime is taking advantage of issues such as massive unemployment & vulnerabilities of migrant & other oppressed communities.

To understand relationships between labour & tech, we need to consider affordances of space as well. This is not merely an outcome of design, but a complex assemblage of 'historical', 'social' & 'political'.

Workers tech usage in our study also indicates that appropriate tech can strengthen the associational power of trade union & bolster resistance in cities. Crucially, low tech is imp for under-resourced communities' survival struggles.

We also find that worker resistance is not always only against DLPs such as Uber, but also against the extraction of local bureaucracy & state. Here, traditional trade unions are critical because they expand workers frames of resistance.

This shift emerged as OR-DLPs disrupted the spatial fixity of the taxi business previously anchored around taxi stands. Therefore, mobile apps such as WhatsApp & Walkie Talkie became crucial to organising effort.

We find that technology fostered worker organizers (rather than external ones) as key actors, with tech affordances enabling hybrid & networked unionism—reimagining spatiality through networked dimensions.

We examines how entry of on-demand ridesourcing DLPs like Uber have reshaped labor geography & worker resistance dynamics. We explore how a traditional trade union in Kolkata, India, navigated this shift.

Here is the link to our 2024 CSCW paper : "Union Makes Us Strong: Space, Technology, and On-Demand Ridesourcing Digital Labour Platforms"

dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

The paper further delves into how group identities online - such as being Latino and women - foster collective action and solidarity.

The paper provides insights on how we can support the challenges and needs of immigrant domestic workers in technology-mediated labour markets.

We find that Latino house-cleaners prefer to use asynchronous digital marketplaces, such as social media commerce groups and online classified advertisement websites, as the platforms provide flexibility and control over their labour outcomes.

In CSCSW 2024, our paper "El costo de la independencia: Latino house-cleaners in Technology-Mediated Labour Markets," which explores how ethnicity, gender, and immigration shape labour experiences won the DEI Recognition award.

Here is the link to our paper:

dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...