Contradictions of Sharing Economy Transformation: The Precariat of Electric Motorcycle Partners in Indonesia

This research identifies the contradictions in the transformation of partnership-based work in the electric motor business. The transformation of the ride-hailing business to electric-based motorbikes has an impact on electric motorbike workers as ride-hailing business platform partners.

The examination was carried out through analysis of the capital flow activities of ride-hailing companies Grab and Gojek Indonesia. The capital flow activities of these companies are experiencing convergence with domestic political economic forces in the expansion of the "electric motorbike" business. This convergence of company capital has had implications for driver partners through partnership working relationships which places them in a vulnerable class (precariat). Using cases in the cities of Jakarta, Surabaya, and Solo to see the condition of this vulnerable urban working class which has experienced depoliticization in its relations with companies. This situation has worsened the vulnerability of electric motorbike driver partners in Indonesia.

This research criticizes the weaknesses of Guy Standing's precariat analysis as the new class. Standing's argument is irrelevant in the case of Indonesia. These electric motorbike driver partners are experiencing depoliticization as a class. This situation has subordinated them to the working class. Not a tough new class as Standing believed.

This research is simultaneously able to explain the tension of Indonesia's economic structure (universal) which is transforming the motorbike business, by using the reality of the urban precariat class (context). This method of analysis plays a role in dialectical reasoning to understand the existing social phenomena.