Beyond Strikes and Courts: Embedding Worker Voice in Platform Governance through Investor Pressure
Published: 2026
Author(s) Name: S Senthil Ganesh |
Author(s) Affiliation: Professor (Strategy and General Mgt.), Xavier Institute of Management, XIM University, Odisha, India
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Abstract
Platform workers are innovating beyond strikes and lawsuits by wielding capital-market pressure, yet the determinants of success remain unclear. This paper extends power-resources theory to treat investor leverage as a fifth, relational resource and analyses 32 labor-investor campaigns across five continents (1980-2025). Using documentary evidence and qualitative comparative analysis, it distils a fourfold
typology—proxy fights, ESG coalitions, divestment threats and direct-equity demands—and shows that campaigns prevail when they strike before IPOs, present independent risk evidence and assemble broad worker-expert-investor coalitions. India’s trajectory from street protests to the Gig and Platform Service Workers’ Union’s “Worker Ka IPO” bid illustrates these dynamics in an emerging-market context where disclosure reforms substitute partly for pension-fund stewardship.
Keywords: N.A.
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