Topic 4: Online platforms: the work of the future or the return of 19th century task work?
How do we ensure proper working conditions and social protection for workers, without losing the benefits that platforms can offer...
Platforms offers their workers the opportunity to work from anywhere, at any time, and to perform the tasks that suit them. However, it also brings challenges and risks, particularly in terms of social status, social protection and well-being at work.
How do we ensure proper working conditions and social protection for workers, without losing the benefits that platforms can offer...
The emergence of digital work platforms has been one of the major transformations in the world of work over the last ten years. This new form of work has completely changed the employment arrangements and the work organisation.
Working through platforms offers workers the opportunity to work from anywhere, at any time, and to perform the tasks that suit them. However, it also brings challenges and risks, particularly in terms of employment status, social protection and well-being at work (health and safety), but also regarding the organisation of our labour market.
In general, digital platforms have chosen to classify their workers as self-employed, with the effect that they fall under the social status of self-employed workers and that certain aspects of the social protection granted to employed workers do not apply. The social status of the self-employed workers already offers a very developed social protection compared to other EU countries, but there are still important differences with the status of employed workers.
The working conditions on the platforms are set out in the platforms' "terms of service" which the workers have to accept before starting work. These conditions are intended to govern the following issues: how and when to pay platform workers, how to evaluate their work, and what recourse these workers have (or do not have) in case of problems.
An extensive survey, conducted at the initiative of the ILO, has highlighted many of the pitfalls associated with this way of governing relations between workers and the platform such as the payment of incomes below the legal minimum wages, the absence of interlocutors in the event of a problem, the impossibility of challenging a negative assessment, the impossibility of exercising rights linked to freedom to join a trade union and to freedom of collective bargaining, and the lack of prevention of occupational risks... It is true that the new possibilities created by digital work platforms are blurring the previously well-defined line between employed workers and self-employed workers."But digital work platforms also open up opportunities that did not exist before, especially for women, for young people, for people with disabilities,... This must be welcomed."
Seen by some as the 4th industrial revolution, working through digital platforms will continue to grow. To oppose it would be aberrant. While supporting its development, the challenge will be to ensure that workers have access to adequate working conditions and social protection and that they can carry out their activity while preserving their health and safety. Otherwise, the "new economy" would risk sounding the return of 19th century task work.
What do you think about this?
- How do we ensure proper working conditions and social protection for workers, without losing the benefits that platforms can offer...
- How can we avoid the well-known pitfalls of platform work?
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