Publications

• Monographs

• Cole, M (2026) Unpaid: the Past, Present and Future of Wage Theft. London: Verso

• Refereed Journal Articles 

• Cole, M, (2025) Automation and the Present of Work: Interrogating the Discourse. Historical Materialism.
• Cole, M. (2022) ‘(Infra)structural Discontinuity: Capital, Labour, and Technological Change’, Antipode, 55(2), pp. 348–372. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12887.
• Cole, M, Stuart, M, Hardy, K, Spencer, D. (2022) Wage Theft and the Struggle over the Working Day: A Typology and Analysis of Unpaid Labour in Hospitality Industry. Work, Employment and Society.https://doi.org/10.1177/09500170221111719
• Howson, K, Johnston, H, Cole, M, Ferrari, F, Ustek-Spilda, F, Graham, M, (2022) Extractive Geographies of Cloud Production: Digital Arbitrage and Unpaid Labour at the Planetary Scale. Global Networks. https://doi.org/10.1111/glob.12407
• Cole, M, Cant, C, Ustek-Spilda, F, Graham, M, (2021) Politics by Automatic Means? A Critique of Artificial Intelligence Ethics at Work. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence. Special Issue: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work: Humans in Control (edited by Janine Berg, Ekkehard Ernst and Phoebe V Moore). https://doi.org/10.3389/frai.2022.869114
• Howson, K, Ustek Spilda, F, Bertolini, A, Heeks, R, Ferrari, F, Katta, S, Cole, M, Aguera Reneses, P, Salem, N, Steward, S, Graham, M, Sutcliff, D, (2021) ‘Stripping back the mask: Working conditions on digital labour platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic’. International Labour Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/ilr.12222

Book Chapters

Cole M (2024) Services are the Future of Work. In: Pitts FH and MacLeavy J (eds) Routledge Handbook for the Future of Work. London: Routledge, pp. 211–224. Available at: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003327561-24/services-future-work-matthew-cole?context=ubx&refId=4af40112-7b42-4a04-b255-8f71f5b0bfbe.

Bertolini, A., Cole, M. and Steward, S. (2023) ‘Chapter 11: Putting the platform economy in its place: contested regulatory terrains’, in D. Clegg and N. Durazzi (eds) Handbook of Labour Market Policy in Advanced Democracies. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, pp. 148–159. Available at: https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/book/9781800880887/book-part-9781800880887-18.xml

Ustek-Spilda, F, Ferrari, F, Cole, M, Aguera-Reneses, P, Graham, M, (2021) The Infrastructural Power of Platform Capitalism. Social Europe Publishing in cooperation with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, pp. 1–7. https://www.socialeurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Dossier_Transformation_of_Work.pdf

Cole, M, Radice, H, Umney, C, (2020) ‘The Political Economy of Datafication and Work: A New Digital Taylorism?’ Socialist Register 2021: Beyond Digital Capitalism: New Ways of Living. Monthly Review Press, New York.

Cole, M, (2018) Exploitation, in: The Bloomsbury Companion to Marx. Bloomsbury Publishing, London. pp. 303-310.  doi:10.5040/9781474278737.ch-032

• Non-Academic Publications

• Cole, M. (2025) ‘Employers Who Steal Wages Should Be Made Criminally Liable’, Novara Media, 16 October. Available at: https://novaramedia.com/2025/10/16/employers-who-steal-wages-should-be-made-criminally-liable/
• Cole, M. (2024) ‘British Workers Are on the Cusp of Winning a Union at Amazon’, Jacobin Magazine, 15 July. Available at: https://jacobin.com/2024/07/amazon-coventry-union-election-starmer.
• Cole, M. (2023) ‘Political Choices Undermined the Workers’ Movement, Not Deindustrialization’, Jacobin Magazine, 11 November. Available at: https://jacobin.com/2023/11/workers-labor-movement-deindustrialization-aaron-benanav-neoliberal-economy
• Cole, M, (2023) ‘How Britain’s Unions Took the Fight to Amazon’, Jacobin Magazine, 10 October. Available at: https://jacobin.com/2023/05/britain-amazon-union-strike-gmb-coverntry-wages-working-conditions
• Cole, M. (2021). ‘The Wage Theft Epidemic’. Tribune. https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/11/wage-theft-karl-marx-capitalism-workers-bosses-labour
• Cole, M, (2021) How Value Weaponises the Machine. Verso blog. Available at:https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/5068-how-value-weaponises-the-machine)
• Cole, M, (2020) ‘Les machines intélligentes. Une brève synthèse historique’, Les Mondes du Travail,(24–25), pp. 115–123. Translated by Françoise Piotet.
• Cole, M, (2020) Automation Will Create More Jobs, But Most Will Be Shit. Novara Media. London. Available at: https://novaramedia.com/2020/10/05/automation-will-create-more-jobs-but-most-will-be-shit/
• Cole, M, (2020). Why Silicon Valley Loves Coronavirus. Tribune Magazine. London. Available at: https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/03/why-silicon-valley-loves-coronavirus
  Cole, M, (2018) Why a Strike at TGI Friday’s Is a Big Deal for Britain’s Pissed Off Hospitality Workers. Vice Magazine. Available at: https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/435vm3/why-a-strike-at-tgi-fridays-is-a-big-deal-for-britains-pissed-off-hospitality-workers
• Cole, M, (2017) Platform and Value-Form’. Salvage Quarterly. London. Available at:http://salvage.zone/online-exclusive/platform-capitalism-and-value-form/
  Cole, M, (2017) It’s possible that we can build a society where people don’t have to work-here’s how’. The Independent. London. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/post-work-automation-robots-what-counts-as-work-in-the-first-place-a7899786.html

Impact and Media                                                                                                                 

• (2025) BBC Radio 4 “You and Yours” on Delivero kits (53 minutes): https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002jsc6?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
• (2025) Presentation of DIGIT research on unpaid knowledge contributions to digital labour platforms at the ILO, Geneva.
• (2024) Submitted research to the Labour Market Enforcement Strategy 2025 to 2026: call for evidence.
• (2024) Research paper on AI Ethics cited by the US Centre for Disease Control: https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/2024/09/09/ai-risk-management/ And hosted in the National Library of Medicine:
  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9334705/
  (2024)  Signatory on a digital policy white paper developed with colleagues from around the world: 
• (2023) ‘Marx, piece wages & the gig economy: Interview w/ Matt Cole’. The Gig Economy Project.Available at: https://braveneweurope.com/podcast-marx-piece-wages-the-gig-economy-interview-w-matt-cole
• (2022) 1 November 2022 – Connected tech: smart or sinister? – Oral evidence, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, UK Parliament. https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/0bb1e7d0-d649-447d-b8f0-35024934ac3f
• (2021) ‘The Culture File Debate Nov 27th: Play’. RTE Radio: The Culture File Debate. Available at: https://www.rte.ie/radio/lyricfm/clips/22035753/
• (2021) ‘‘Pay’. Fairwork Podcast. Available at: https://shows.acast.com/fairwork-podcast/episodes/005-pay
• (2021) ‘Belabored: Back to Work’. Dissent Magazine. Available at: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/belabored-back-to-work