A few days ago, I experienced a strange auditive mix-up. My favorite German radio program, Deutschlandfunk, sent a documentary about “platform workers”. Uber, Deliveroo, etc., you might think, but no. This was about workers on oil platforms in Norway: about the oil boom in the North Sea, about the hard work on the oil rigs and as diver, about the many long-term health issues that arouse, and about the long battle for recognition and compensation. The Norwegian parliament has recently set up a compensation scheme for the families of the victims of a particularly egregious neglect of safety standards, which led to the capsizing of a whole platform in 1980, with 123 deaths.
Today, we think of “platform workers” as individuals contracting with online platforms for executing online or offline services, often at lousy pay.