Work on digital labour platforms has been shown to frequently fall short of decent labour standards. Platform work takes place in a highly unregulated context, and in most countries platform workers are not protected by minimum labour standards governing pay, health and safety, fair due process, and representation. Platform work has rapidly expanded as an anticipated engine of job creation in the Global South, however, there is a lack of data to enable policymakers to evaluate job quality in the platform economy, and the potential of platform work to provide sustainable livelihoods. This project gathered data in South Africa against a set of criteria of decent platform work (the Fairwork Principles). The Principles were established through a process of consultation and consensus building with platform workers, platforms and other stakeholders from several regions, at meetings held at the ILO in 2018. Drawing on evidence provided by platform managers, research interviews with platform workers, and desk research, the resultant data took the form of 'scores' for prominent platforms in South Africa against five principles, and ten thresholds of decent work. We now share annual fairness scorecards for key platforms operating in the South African market, for 2019, 2020 and 2021.There are millions of platform workers who live all over the world, doing work that is outsourced or organised via digital platforms or apps in the gig economy. This work can include jobs as varied as taxi driving using Uber, translation on Upwork, or the training of machine learning algorithms through Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Despite the potential of such work to give jobs to those who need them, platform workers have little ability to negotiate wages and working conditions with their employers, who are often on the other side of the world. Our previous research has shown that platforms often operate in relatively unregulated ways, and can encourage a race to the bottom in terms of workers' ability to defend existing jobs, liveable wages, and dignified working conditions. The potentials and risks of platform work touch down starkly in South Africa. A country that, by some measures, has the world's highest income inequality, and 28% unemployment rates. At the same time, the country has relatively well-developed internet infrastructure, and a relatively stable political climate and state/legal institutions. These factors make the country a site in which the platform economy is nascent enough to allow us to co-develop solutions with a multi-disciplinary team from Law and the Social Sciences that will offer tangible opportunities to influence policy and practice surrounding digital work. As other middle- and low-income countries quickly develop their internet infrastructures and millions of more potential digital workers rush online in search of opportunities, the interventions that this project proposes will be of crucial need if we are to avoid some of the 'race to the bottom' that the current world of digital work is bringing into being. Our project will culminate in two key initiatives. First, building on a work package of legal research, a Code of Practice will be developed to serve as an interpretive tool to outline the ways that existing regulations can be made applicable to platform workers. Second, we will develop a 'Fairwork Foundation.' Much like the Fairtrade Foundation has been able to certify the production chains of commodities like coffee or chocolate, the Fairwork Foundation will certify the production networks of the platform economy, and therefore harness consumer power to significantly contribute to the welfare and job quality of digital workers. This programme of work aims to not just uncover where fair and unfair work takes place, but also seeks to codify that knowledge into both a 'Fairwork certification scheme' and an annual ranking of platforms. These two initiatives will ultimately allow for the development of an international standard for good-quality digital working conditions. These objectives will be achieved with 5 project stages. First, the Law team will analyse S. African labour laws, social security laws, and other legal and policy regulations relating to the platform economy, and ask how those laws might be adapted to provide decent work standards for digital platform workers. At the same time, the Social Science team will use a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to map the key issues faced by S. African platform workers: developing a rich understanding of how platform work may be failing to live up to decent work standards. Third, we develop meaningful decent work standards for platform work that happens outside of the Global North. Fourth, we take those standards and use them in a process of action research in which we seek to certify the digital work platforms: assigning them a Fairwork certification if they pass. Finally, through an extended process of stakeholder engagement and outreach with workers, platforms, and policy makers, we plan a short-term strategy of pressuring platforms to change their policies to improve working conditions and a longer-term strategy of influencing the direction that regulation takes in a currently highly unregulated sector.
The five principles and ten thresholds of fair platform work were established through a process of stakeholder consultation with workers, platform managers and other experts from multiple regions including Africa, Asia and Europe. They were initially decided at meetings held at the ILO in Geneva in 2018, and have since undergone two processes of consultative revision to ensure ongoing relevance and sensitivity. Fairness scores for each platform are decided based on qualitative data gathering and peer review. Researchers triangulate between three sources of data: Desk Research Each annual Fairwork ratings cycle starts with desk research to map the range of platforms to be scored, identify points of contact with management, develop suitable interview guides and survey instruments, and design recruitment strategies to access workers. For each platform, we also gather and analyse contracts, terms and conditions, and digital interfaces. Desk research also flags up any publicly available information that could assist us in scoring different platforms, for instance the provision of particular services to workers, or the existence of past or ongoing disputes. Manager Interviews The second method involves approaching platforms for evidence. We interview platform managers and request evidence for each of the Fairwork principles. This provides insights into the operation and business model of the platform, while also opening up a dialogue through which the platform could agree to implement improvements to working conditions. In cases where platform managers do not agree to interviews nor share any evidence with us, we base our scoring on evidence obtained through desk-based research and worker interviews. Worker Surveys and Interviews The third method involves collecting data directly from platform workers. This allows us to see workers’ contracts and learn about platform policies and practices that pertain to their working conditions. Workers who participate in our research are fairly compensated for their time and efforts, and their survey and interview responses are kept entirely confidential. Gig Work Platforms: We employ a diverse worker recruitment strategy that incorporates both on- and off-platform methods. We recruit workers by hiring their services via the platform (e.g., by ordering an Uber), approaching workers at known worker meeting points (e.g., at spots where delivery couriers congregate), through social media sites and online forums (e.g., on Facebook, WhatsApp or Reddit) and using snowball sampling (where workers we interview refer us to their colleagues). We interview 6-10 workers at each platform. These interviews do not aim to build a representative sample but instead seek to understand the processes of work, and the ways it is carried out and managed. In other words, data from workers is useful to understand whether problems exist; they are not used to understand how prevalent those problems are. Worker interviews also help us understand how platform policies work (for which representative samples are not needed). Interview data, per the provisions of this projects' ethics clearance is gathered with the assurance of strict confidentiality, as it carries a risk of potential identification and retaliation against workers by platforms. From Data to Ratings This threefold methodological approach allows us to cross-check the claims made by platform management, while also providing the opportunity to collect evidence from multiple sources. Final scores are collectively decided by the Fairwork team based on all three forms of information gathering. The scores are decided through a rigorous peer review process that includes the core team of researchers involved in planning and executing the research (e.g. the Fairwork South Africa team) the central Fairwork team based in Oxford, and two reviewers from other Fairwork country teams. This allows us to provide consistency and scientific rigour to the scoring process. Points are only awarded if clear evidence exists on each threshold.
