Envisioning the Future of Online Job Sector: An Audacious Plan for Protecting the Rights of Platform Workers
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) is currently negotiating a groundbreaking treaty - the Platform Workers Convention. This binding international agreement, aimed at establishing global standards for the rights and protections of workers engaged via digital labor platforms, is set to address the challenges faced by platform workers, such as precarious work conditions, lack of collective bargaining power, and gaps in labor protections.
Key elements of the Convention include:
- Recognition of Platform Workers' Rights: The Convention seeks to universalize labor rights beyond traditional employment status, ensuring even workers classified as independent contractors have fundamental protections and rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining.
- Algorithmic Management: The Convention addresses concerns about opaque and automated work allocation systems used by platforms, promoting accountability for platforms for the digital tools that control work conditions and encouraging democratic control or oversight mechanisms.
- Working Conditions: The Convention emphasizes the necessity of safe and healthy working environments, explicitly recognizing the exploitation, stigmatization, and harassment risks that platform workers face, especially those in the informal economy. It pushes for due diligence and accountability by employers and governments to improve these conditions.
- Jurisdiction and Enforcement: To address the cross-border nature of platform work and transnational platform companies, the Convention aims to create mechanisms enabling enforcement of labor rights across jurisdictions and prevent regulatory evasion by companies operating digitally in multiple countries.
- Formalization and Accountability: The Convention supports transitioning informal platform work into the formal economy by requiring employer and government accountability measures, which would facilitate access to social protections, benefits, and decent work conditions.
Negotiations are anticipated to conclude with the adoption of the Convention and a related Recommendation in the near future. These developments reflect broad worker input to ensure protections respond to the lived realities of platform workers, and block harmful amendments that might weaken labor protections.
The draft Convention does not limit protections based on an individual's formal employment classification. It guarantees protection against unjust deactivation from a platform, treated with the same considerations as termination of employment. The Convention mandates the implementation of a rigorous inspection and certification regime for platform working conditions, including the use of digital certificates that would serve as presumptive proof of compliance.
The draft Convention proposes a robust jurisdictional model, establishing a dual responsibility for compliance, holding both the country where the platform is legally established and the country where the worker habitually performs their work accountable. It also guarantees minimum wage guarantees for platform workers, with pay calculated per task completed and explicitly excluding gratuities.
The draft Convention mandates that digital labour platforms may only introduce or revise algorithmic management systems with the agreement of workers' representatives or authorization from public authorities based on demonstrated compliance with the draft Convention's established standards. It prohibits charging fees directly to platform workers and recognizes the home as a private space deserving of protection.
Unlike the European Union's Platform Work Directive, the ILO's draft convention extends the full spectrum of protections to all platform workers, irrespective of their formal employment status. The draft Convention was finalized in 2023 and has been kept unpublished until this point to allow the ITUC and the Workers' group of the ILO to develop their strategies and engage in thorough discussions of the draft Convention with their members.
In summary, the ILO Platform Workers Convention is designed to set binding global standards that improve rights and protections for platform workers, addressing critical issues like digital surveillance, working conditions, cross-border jurisdiction, and enforcement to create a fairer, safer, and more accountable platform labor market worldwide.
- The ILO Platform Workers Convention, upon adoption, will aim to extend the full spectrum of protections to all digital labor platform workers, irrespective of their formal employment status, recognizing their right to collective bargaining and ensuring they are protected against unjust deactivation.
- Recognizing the risks faced by platform workers, such as exploitation, stigmatization, and harassment, especially those in the informal economy, the Convention emphasizes the necessity of safe and healthy working environments, promoting due diligence and accountability by employers and governments.
- In response to the cross-border nature of platform work and transnational platform companies, the Convention will create mechanisms enabling enforcement of labor rights across jurisdictions, preventing regulatory evasion and holding both the country where the platform is legally established and the country where the worker habitually performs their work accountable.
