Across the United States, worker militancy is on the rise. A labor movement that has spent years on the back foot is beginning to look fiercer and rejuvenated. The efforts of the ten thousand John Deere workers who struck and won a remarkably strong contract in particular have shown the sheer power of organizing. But how do you organize when your workplace is a computer and your job consists of countless data tasks for which you’re paid a pittance?

That’s precisely the problem facing microworkers around the globe. In his new book Work Without the Worker: Labour in the Age of Platform Capitalism, Phil Jones explains the uphill battle these workers face and how their precarious form of employment may be facilitating its own demise.

Jones joined Alex Press on a recent episode of Jacobin’s Primer, a podcast about all things Amazon. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.