The International Labour Conference (ILC) on 13 June agreed to develop binding international standards to ensure decent employment rights for platform (aka gig) workers. This decision marks a big win for trade unions after a strong and highly effective campaign led by the International Trade Union Confederation.
Framework for employment rights
Platform workers include people employed in ride-hailing, retail delivery (including logistics), domestic and care work, translators, and content moderation in the media and publishing industries. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the platform economy employs around 150 million workers worldwide, many in precarious employment with few or no basic protections such as employment contracts, holiday pay, sick pay, social security, and the right to join trade unions.
The ILC involved governments, employers, and trade unions, and agreed on a framework that commits these parties to creating an ILO convention and ILO recommendation which will become part of worldwide employment rights standards.
The framework will also provide workers with access to algorithmic management information and the right to organise and form trade unions and to secure collective bargaining, the enforcement of standards, and dispute resolution.
With employment and union rights under attack globally, obtaining a final agreement that will become an ILO convention may not be easy.
Unions and employment rights for gig workers
According to an ILO survey across 14 European countries in February 2024, union density in the platform economy stands at 13.4%. Platform workers have “stronger pro-union attitudes and are more receptive to union membership” but “only over a quarter state that they would like to join a union”.
A report by the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in 2021 into platform working said that “practices like casualisation, management by algorithm rather than human [sic] and a complete absence of trade unions are baked into the way that platform economy is run. There are fears that it is therefore only a matter of time before these spread to other jobs.”
Since that time, there has been little good news for unions trying to organise platform workers. The GMB Union in the UK has had some success with the delivery company Hermes in 2019 in gaining representation for self-employed couriers and the same union won rights to represent Uber drivers in 2021. GMB is currently active in Uber with nationwide demonstrations being held by drivers against Uber’s commission rates.
Elsewhere, there has been sporadic union activity, notably in Italy where national collective agreements in the Italian transport and logistics sector define the work of JustEat riders. Italian Amazon delivery riders have also reached agreements with local authorities on employment standards.
Extending rights to platform workers worldwide
Attempts to contain platform working in other countries have not been successful. Unions will need political support to help organise platform workers, but many will have to adapt to a new approach to organising in the digi-tech economy and to innovative techniques to organise transient platform workers.
Luc Triangle, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), sounded a note of optimism: “This year’s conference delivered real wins for working people: new protections, stronger institutions, and recognition for those who’ve been left out too long… Now we need to turn these victories into real change. For the first time, there is a clear mandate to regulate digital labour platforms and ensure that innovation does not come at the cost of workers’ rights.”
In a separate development in the UK this week, the government met with three platform delivery companies: Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat. The companies agreed to increase the use of facial verification checks and fraud detection technology over the next 90 days, in an effort to stop workers using their apps to work illegally, notably “unregistered substitute workers” who do not have a legal right to work in the UK.
However, only full protection for platform workers – provided for by an enforceable ILO convention, union organisation, recognition and a basic collective agreement – will help stamp out these abuses.
