Juventudes uberizadas na América Latina: as vivências do trabalho de jovens entregadores por aplicativo

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the experiences of young delivery workers subjected to app-based platforms. Through the observation of work situations and interviews conducted in Natal, Brazil, and Córdoba, Argentina, with motorcycle and bicycle delivery, this is a qualitative study anchored in Historical-Cultural Psychology and informed by historical-dialectical materialism. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 22 young individuals, eleven from Natal, Brazil, and eleven from Córdoba, Argentina, aged between 18 and 24 years old. The discussion will be developed around four core themes: 1) Uberized trajectories of peripheral youth, 2) Bad meetings in alienated activity, 3) Good meetings in emancipatory activity, and 4) Between formal and informal worlds: Labor projects of uberized youth. The exploitation of child and youth labor is a reality in the informal sector, used as cheap labor, paid low wages, and devoid of rights. App-based companies capitalize on this informality common to peripheral countries, acting as "mediators." The trajectories of young people in the lower echelons are characterized by the overexploitation of labor, experiencing a production model reminiscent of the 1.0 industry, marked by long hours and intense physical effort to earn income that often falls below the minimum wage. The guiding activity of young adults within capitalist society integrates a contradiction: work as both emancipatory and alienating. The absence of reference to dignified employment as a minimum instrument of social protection distances and distorts the perception of decent working conditions. App-based companies use entrepreneurial ideology to reinforce the individualism inherent in neoliberal rationality. In the Uberized activity, risks and costs are shifted onto the worker. Faced with the absence of minimum rights and the adversities of the work context, solidarity emerges as a vital support network. This cooperation drives the development of class consciousness, sharing new ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.