ILO Adopts Convention Setting Minimum Protections for Platform Workers

Overview

• The ILO adopted the Convention at its Geneva conference on Friday, establishing international minimum standards meant to protect people who work through digital platforms.
• The text requires platforms to disclose automated decision systems and gives workers the right to explanations and reviews of algorithmic decisions that significantly affect their work.
• The Convention stops short of a universal employment presumption and directs countries to determine employment status on the facts of how work is performed.
• The instrument obliges states to secure access to social security and basic labour rights for platform workers and lists protections for safety, data privacy, anti-harassment and migrant workers.
• The vote opens an implementation phase in which governments, unions and employers must translate the Convention into domestic law and enforcement; the move will trigger national debates over classification, financing and coverage and affect millions of informal platform workers such as those estimated by Argentina’s unions.