GAFAM’s Labour Practices and Their Impacts: Findings from European Case Studies

3 July 2025 By

Researchers from the University of Barcelona, the University of Wroclaw, ColaBOR, and the University of Bologna have carried out research on how large technology platforms — and their labour and employment practices — affect local and national industrial relations systems, based on case studies from four European countries:

  • Meta’s content moderation activities in Spain
  • Meta and Apple call center agents in Portugal
  • Amazon drivers and warehousemen in Italy and Poland.

The INCA team conducted a total of 82 in-depth ethnographic interviews with workers and experts—such as trade unionists, activists, and lawyers, among others—with the goal to unravel the dynamics of a labour struggle occurring in each country and the ecosystem of social actors and companies involved in it. In particular, the researchers explored how GAFAM companies organise labour, namely using externalisation and subcontracting; how they use different management tools and styles include algorithmic management, gamification, rating, and so on, both from the perspective of both workers and tangential professionals and experts; and how trade unions, workers, media, social media, and other social actors discuss GAFAM companies’ practices and, particularly, their impacts and the labour conflict.

Despite the differences in the case studies under analysis, the research highlights the existence of common dynamics underlying GAFAM’s operational strategies, confirming the existence of cross‐cutting trends and dynamics that transcend national or company-related specificities.

Four key themes emerge across the case studies:

  1. Heavy subcontracting, weak accountability: GAFAM companies rely heavily on subcontracting to manage labour while avoiding employer responsibilities and obligations. These schemes encompass both core services, such as Amazon’s logistics and Meta’s content moderation, and ancillary activities. Common features across contexts include workforce mobility, reliance on migrant labour, and temporary contracts. Subcontracting allows GAFAM to control the content, pace, and organisation of work processes, serving as a strategic mechanism for labour management without accountability.
  2. Algorithmic Monitoring Causing Stress and Complicating Collective Resistance: Algorithmic management tools embody the essence of subcontracting schemes, serving as instruments for work management, monitoring performance, and dictating work pace. These tools make it difficult for workers to identify the corporate structure and complicate collective resistance efforts. As a result, workers frequently report high levels of stress and dissatisfaction, primarily driven by accelerated work pace issues that often overshadow concerns about wages or contractual terms.
  3. Strategically Fragmented Workforce: The subcontracting schemes, combined with the implementation of algorithmic management tools, produce a highly fragmented work environment, which significantly impacts worker mobilisation, collective action, and organisational dynamics. Subcontracting practices, workforce segmentation, and high turnover rates are strategic measures employed to deliberately weaken workers’ organisational power. Interestingly, while traditional unions face challenges in adapting to these fragmented labour structures, grassroots workers’ organisations are emerging as effective advocates, addressing the precarious conditions that have become prevalent in these environments.
  4. Workers’ Well-Being Harmed by High Workload and Algorithmic Management: Finally, the application of algorithmic management, despite the diversity of the cases analysed, demonstrates a direct impact on workers’ well‐being, especially on their mental health. High‐intensity tasks, excessive workloads, and a lack of adequate risk prevention measures contribute to substantial physical and mental health challenges for workers. Among them, content moderators are particularly vulnerable, facing severe psychosocial risks that are exacerbated by insufficient legal frameworks to address these emerging issues effectively.

Fabiola Mancinelli and Verna Alcalde González, University of Barcelona