Full bibliography

How have neoliberal discourses of the gig economy shaped the terrain of gig worker organizing in Ontario? This thesis interrogates and contextualizes Uber’s efforts to legitimize and further expand its operations in Ontario during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the centrality of its appeals to (and reproduction of) workers’ entrepreneurial common sense in these endeavors. Drawing on ten-semi structured interviews with current and former Uber drivers and delivery workers, it explores the contradictory form of independence experienced by platform-mediated gig workers, reflecting on the significance of gig work being perceived as the “least worst option” within the contemporary labour landscape.