Position Taking, Blurring, or Avoidance: How Left-Wing Parties Across Europe Approach Gig Workers as an Electoral Traget Group

Left-wing parties are seen as the natural representatives of the interests of workers, especially those with precarious employment status. With the increasing digitalisation of the labour market, new work and business models are emerging, such as the gig economy, which are characterised by great heterogeneity. As a result, gig workers are not yet systematically collectively organised and potentially very diverse regarding their political preferences. Therefore, the emergence of the gig economy poses new challenges for parties - and especially for those on the left of the party spectrum: (How) should they address gig workers as an electoral target group? What rhetorical strategies do left-wing parties use? This paper contributes to the party perspective on the gig economy by conducting a content analysis of hand-coded election manifestos to identify different framings and strategies. The sample includes more than 70 left-wing parties from 23 European countries, and the analysis is based on their most recent manifestos with an analysis period between 2018-2022. Preliminary results suggest that left parties address the gig economy and the labour situation mainly from a legal perspective, unanimously calling for the regulation of bogus self-employment and the circumvention of workers' rights. Beyond the knowledge of the actual framing of the gig economy, the results contribute to our understanding of the strategic behaviour of parties with regard to new and potentially electorally risky issues.