Data Strikes Against Data Coloniality: Hacking Labour Law

Abstract

From a decolonial perspective, what is the relationship between the limits of the legality of strikes and boycotts in digital labour? Starting from Faustino and Lippold’s framework, we will consolidate the idea that data coloniality is part of the dynamics of capitalist/racist accumulation, through the expropriation and exploitation of digital labour, especially in the Global South. In this dynamic, however, new forms of workers’ resistance arise, finding gaps for reappropriating the immaterial labour that they produced. Among these collective resistances, we chose to investigate data strikes, analysing the case of the “breque dos apps” in Brazil, often related to boycott actions of digital platforms, that integrate the perspectives of hacktivism, considering McKenzie's thought. Therefore, legal analysis is required considering these new conflicts. How can labour law, from a decolonial perspective, contribute to the legality of forms of resistance compatible with the current capitalist dynamics? Considering the coloniality of knowledge that involves the right to strike, it may be more advantageous for digital workers to think about other legal instruments to protect their collective struggle, using data protection laws, in defence of workers' intellectual property. We need to hack the networks, but also find ways of hacking Law itself.