Power resource analysis: potentials of associational and societal power cept of unions, workers’ rights and the goals of the labour movement. Besides IG Metall, the YTU also had encounters with other workers’ groups in the platform economy. When eight LGBTQ 12 YouTubers in California filed a class-action suit against YouTube’s algorithmic management dynamics, both the FairTube campaign and the LGBTQ YouTubers af­firmed their mutual solidarity with one other and established permanent contacts(Ellis 2019; Solsman 2016). Similar exchange took place and solidarity was expressed between activists that have been campaigning for the AB5 arrange­ment for gig workers in California(Konger/Scheiber 2019) as well as walkouts and demonstrations by tech workers at Google(Bhuiyan 2019). The founders of the Internet Creators Guild(ICG), an earlier effort to represent YouTube creators, were also in contact with YTU and endorsed their efforts publicly(Stokel-Walker 2019a). More controversially, several right-wing groups tried to forge coalitions with the YTU, lobbying within the group to rally against the closure of right-wing-channels. This foray was not taken up or sup­ported by the YTU. While some interventions were blocked and individuals were excluded from the group, the YTU on the other hand did not openly address this issue. tent creators on YouTube, the establishment of the YTU can be traced back to successful mobilisation and development of two other power resources, associational power and societal power. This process was fostered by a growing debate surrounding the legal responsibilities of YouTube (institutional power), which the group was able to invoke to its advantage. In labour conflicts, structural power describes the power workers possess in the economic system(Wright 2000), either through strategic work stoppages or by opting out of the work relationship permanently. Both a look at frag­mentation within the labour process of content creators and attempted strike actions by the YouTubers Union(›warning strike‹, ›dead upload day‹) suggested that collectively with­drawing labour power has had limited or no impact on the site’s functionality and brand value. 13 YouTube’s proprietary marketplace positions creators as real-time competitors against each other; if an income-earning creator ceases to publish content, other creators can immediately fill this gap. Similar cases have been made for other forms of web-based platform labour(Vandaele 2018). Overall, the YTU’s development in two stages(the first one self-organised and then with union backing) has proved suf­ficient to establish the group as a collective actor within the YouTube community and in the public arena. Given the hur­dles and fragmentations of content creators on the platform described earlier, the effort to establish and develop the YTU is already in and of itself notable. It raises the question as to what power resources the group could mobilise, which shall be discussed in the following. POWER RESOURCE ANALYSIS: POTENTIALS OF ASSOCIATIONAL AND SOCIETAL POWER To assess power relations in this labour conflict and see what potential YTU was able to mobilise, this paper applies the Power Resource Approach(PRA). As a research heuristic to analyse the potentials of trade unions and social movements in labour conflicts, the PRA was developed in the course of a ›revitalisation‹ of labour organisations(Lévesque/Murray 2013; Turner 2006; Voss/Sherman 2000). The approach aims to determine how workers’ organisations have found new strategies to exert their interests and build influence. In any conflict, it differentiates between structural power, associational power, institutional power and societal power of workers(Schmalz et al. 2018). While primarily used for the research on transformations of trade unions, PRA can also be used as a tool to assess social movements without institutional backing. Our argument based on the empirical material is that while structural power is very low for con­12 LGBTQ is an acronym for the terms lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgen­der and queer. These terms describe a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity(Lesbian& Gay Community Services Center 2020). Due to its open publishing structure, YouTube has become an impor­tant space for LGBTQ creators. As the description of YTU’s self-organising processes in the foregoing have illustrated, associational power proved to be a crucial lever for the group. Associational power arises»from workers uniting to form collective political or[…] workers’ associations«(Brinkmann et al. 2008: 25) and requires identification and organisational processes among individuals to take place(Schmalz et al. 2018). The development of the YTU shows how creators have ›appro­priated‹ the communicative resources of both YouTube and Facebook to associate individuals for their purposes. The YTU used YouTube’s video sharing function to promote calls to action and demands, thereby making use of their vast networks and followership on the platform. 14 Facebook’s group tools were used to assemble members collectively with little effort. It served as a cost-free infrastructure with a low entry barrier and no interference by YouTube. Creators could communicate under conditions of anonymity, upload content and even vote upon common issues. Through the use of Facebook, more than 25,000 people could be gathered together in very short time periods. The power to associate so many members was possible due to two pre­conditions: the prominent initiative of JS and the successful invocation of a common ›YouTuber‹ identity among the platform’s creator community. The initiative and leadership of JS did not just lead to the foundation of the group, but also equipped the YTU with a somewhat relatable public 13 This does not change the fact, however, that the platform is in­herently dependent on its creators’ labour power and is poten­tially vulnerable to its withdrawal. To some extent, larger creators in the gaming sector have showed forms of ›marketplace bargaining power‹(one form of structural power), as they were able to move to the Amazon-owned platform Twitch or have worked on cross-plat­form branding(Cassillo 2019). This does not apply to the majority of YouTube creators, however. 14 The FairTube campaign video, for instance, was watched by over 500,000 YouTube viewers and recommended within the platform, a success that was possible through the use of existing(subscriber) networks on the platform. 7