Following years of advocacy by trade unions, platform worker organizations and civil society and a two-year negotiating process, delegates at the 114th International Labour Conference (ILC) voted to adopt a ground-breaking international labour standard to protect workers in the platform economy.
The Convention concerning decent work in the platform economy or International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 193 is a legally binding international treaty that provides for minimum standards of protection and applies to, “all platform workers [...] whether they are in the formal or informal economy”. It recognizes platform workers’ rights to decent working conditions, occupational health and safety, to be protected from violence and harassment at work and social security. It sets out requirements that digital labour platforms provide timely and transparent information on pay and remuneration, classify workers based on the terms of their work and that there is human involvement in automated decision-making systems which impact platform workers’ access to work and conditions.
We spoke with WIEGO’s Digitalization & Platformization Specialist Salonie Hiriyur and StreetNet founder Pat Horn after the Conference to hear their reflections on the negotiations, what they see as the key wins in the Convention – and critically, what happens next.
What were the big wins for platform workers reflected in Convention 193?
Salonie: What this Convention does is, for the first time it recognizes platform work as work, and workers as deserving of rights and protections regardless of how they engage with platforms. So whether they are employees of platforms or self-employed workers choosing to engage with the platforms for work, the Convention recognizes that all of these workers - whether they work in the formal or informal economy - need rights and protections.
That is a very important step and recognition that the workers have been afforded through the Convention.
Because it was a negotiation, we obviously had to give some things up, so it’s not a perfect Convention from the workers’ perspective.
What’s going to change for platform workers as a result of having this new international labour standard?
Salonie: The Convention sets out important guidelines on the use of automated systems and algorithmic management, and requires digital labour platforms to show more transparency in their decision-making. Article 15(2) says there needs to be human involvement, or human reviews, especially when decisions made by algorithms or automated decision-making systems adversely affect workers, for example by suspending or de-activating their account, or that impact their access to work. That’s an important one for us.
Article 9 also says that the classification of workers has to happen [according to] the facts. As we know, platforms have been classifying most workers as independent contractors, an arrangement which has enabled them to evade paying worker entitlements.
This Convention now puts an end to that, and says the member states have an obligation to push digital labour platforms to really check how the work is being performed and then to decide what type of classification the workers will have. This is also another crucial win for workers.
We also won protections around violence and harassment (in Article 6), and the right for workers to remove themselves from situations where they may perceive harm or threat (in Article 5). We won protection for occupational safety and health in Article 4. These are all very big wins for workers and we are all very pleased, as a very diverse worker community, to have this Convention.
What were the challenges in the negotiations?
Salonie: One thing that made this negotiation really hard is that the platform economy is not just one sector or type of work. There is of course ride hailing which is very common, but there are also care workers and domestic workers, there are data workers doing labeling, annotation, content moderation. The needs of these sectors and the workers are very different. So to have a Convention that responds to all of them, protects all of them, was difficult to achieve. But what it has also done from the worker organization side is try to bring these groups together, and try to build bridges between these groups and also more traditional groups of workers in informal employment.
Pat: There's been a major attempt to build a narrative about the workers in the sector, you know, to say that they’re not actually workers by calling them all these other names, like independent contractors, and so on, and it's all part of denying them their rights.
So, what this Convention is doing is rectifying that, and I certainly think that the sentiment in the room is a genuine desire to do that – on behalf of probably just about all the governments and certainly the workers group. But in the employers group they're trying to sustain this system of denying the existence of [platform workers’] identity as workers, and therefore their rights.
Have those challenges had an impact on what the discussion could achieve?
Salonie: We had come into the negotiations thinking there would be a Convention and a Recommendation. The convention is the legally binding part, and the recommendation is more suggestions or ideas for governments to not just have the floor [of protections], as reflected in the convention, but raise standards higher than that, possibly. Unfortunately, because of the way the proceedings have happened, we've been extremely, extremely slow on every point. We reached the point where there was no possibility of also negotiating the recommendation. So, as a committee, we decided we would stop at just the Convention and then pass a Resolution. The Resolution on the standard-setting item on decent work in the platform economy passed at this year’s ILC recognizes that only the Convention could be completed during the session, urges Member States to ratify and implement it and encourages the ILO to allocate sufficient resources and engage in follow-up action.
What can platform workers do next, now that there is an international labour standard to protect them?
Salonie: While this is a very crucial and important Convention, the fight is of course not over. As workers we will have to push our member states, our governments to ratify. To even design and create national policies and regulations that respond to specific contexts and improve the lives of workers, because the Convention is supposed to be a floor. It is the minimum rights that platform workers should be guaranteed, and we hope that states do better than this. It will be our job to come together and organize to push this in our own countries and our own regions, and then come together as a global community of platform workers.
Pat: There will be pressure for the next couple of years on employers to ratify the Convention, it doesn't come into operation until it's been ratified. Each government has to ratify it. Once they ratify it, they develop reporting obligations. They need to bring their laws and policies in line with what is in the standard. They then need to report on an annual basis to the ILO about their progress in implementing the provisions of the Convention, so the first couple of years the focus will be on that.
How do the issues of platform workers relate to workers in the informal economy?
Pat: WIEGO has not come in as an organizer of platform workers, but as an organization which has experience working in this space in different sectors of work in the informal economy – which had a lot in common with the sector, and we’ve made available that experience as well as our relationships with the trade union movement, for example.
Salonie: The conditions of work are often similar to workers in the informal economy, so not just with platform workers, but taking some of this learning and bridging work back to our more traditional affiliates.
A summary of key provisions in ILO Convention 193:
The vice chair of the ILO Worker’s Group, Amanda Brown, summarized the main gains for workers. She stated that for the first time in history, platform workers will be named, recognized and protected by a binding international standard.
Here’s the breakdown by theme:
Misclassification of workers:
Article 9 requires the correct classification of workers, and says that classification shall be guided mainly by the facts relating to the performance of work.
The contract does not decide, the reality decides. The primacy of facts principle is now an international rule, codified in an ILO convention, and workers around the world will see it and use it.
Algorithmic management:
Articles 13 through to 15 forces the platform to disclose that automated systems are watching the worker, and how those systems shape the work and access to it.
When a machine generates a decision, the worker is entitled to a documented explanation of it. Decisions that involve withholding of pay, or the suspension or deactivation of an account, require human involvement in those decisions. No person shall lose their livelihood to a machine without a human answering for it.
Digital deactivation:
Article 17 prohibits the suspension or deactivation of an account or the termination of an engagement on discriminatory or otherwise unlawful grounds. It’s no longer for the platform worker to beg for an explanation – a platform must now justify what it’s done.
Pay and remuneration:
Article 10 requires that what is owed to be paid in full, on time, and by lawful means is for the first time ever in an ILO convention.
Article 10.3 directs states to consider extension of adequate pay and cost recovery protections to those not in employment relations, providing a lifeline for millions of underpaid and overworked platform workers around the world.
Article 11 requires clear, timely information on pay.
Working environment:
Article 3 affirms the fundamental principles and rights at work in the platform economy, including freedom of association and the right to bargain.
In Articles 4 and 5, it insists that every digital platform worker has a right to a safe and healthy working environment with the right to step away from imminent danger without punishment.
In Article 12, workers are guaranteed access to social security on terms no less favourable than other workers in similar classifications.
Article 6 protects workers from violence and harassment, including online and at the hands of clients.
Article 16 shields their personal data, their privacy, and their right to see, correct and erase what is held about them.
Running through the whole instrument is the principle named in Article 23: no less favourable treatment. The app is not a license to strip away hard won rights.