MANILA – Platform workers are now being recognized. The 2025 International Labour Conference (ILC) set in Geneva decided to include their plight in the negotiation of a Convention next year.

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), there are around 150 million platform workers that are employed globally. In the Philippines alone, there are 11 million recorded workers in the digital economy. 

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) said that the decision marks the first global commitment by government, employers, and workers to establish international standards for digital platform workers.

“This is a breakthrough for millions of platform workers worldwide who have waited too long for international protections,” said ITUC General Secretary Luc Triangle.

Prior to the agreed resolution, ITUC together with other international civil society organizations, human rights watchdogs, and unions, signed a joint declaration in support of standards on decent work in the platform economy.

They urged the member-states, unions, and employers to ensure the standards include proper employment classification, guarantee of fair and living wages, access to social security, health and safety standards, transparency and explainability for algorithmic decisions, protection of workers’ data, meaningful human intervention, appropriate mechanism to challenge adverse decisions and access to effective remedies, and protection of bargaining power.

‘Long awaited convention protecting platform workers’

Lena Simet, senior economic justice researcher and advocate at Human Rights Watch, and a signatory to the declaration, said that gig workers have been long denied their rights and setting a global minimum standard could be a game changer. “But only if they cover all workers and adequately address key issues like low and unpredictable pay, widespread misclassification, and opaque algorithms that control workers without accountability.”

A convention is a legally-binding agreement for the member-states and will require national laws once it is ratified in the country. Joanne Cesario, a delegate from the Philippines representing Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law, and Development (APWLD) and Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), said that workers around the world have been calling for the adoption of a convention protecting the platform workers.

“Workers have been pushing for a convention, but of course, the employers only want a recommendation,” Cesario said in a video statement. “They [the employers] do not want anything that is legally binding. The platform economy is a growing economy. It’s really a source of big profit, that’s why employers really want as little regulation as they could have.”

She added that some employers and governments have been trying to undermine the role of the workers and have been referring to them as partners. “But at the end of the day, all of those working in the platform economy are workers and should be guaranteed their basic rights.”

Platform workers as employed workers

It has been a recurring finding in the report of trade unions and global organizations that the weak laws and regulations allowed companies to misclassify platform workers as “self-employed or independent contractors.” Most of the platform workers in the digital application stated that there is no “employer-employee” relationship with their contracts.

Bulatlat’s special report in 2023 stressed the unsafe working conditions of platform riders. In the Employees’ Compensation Program released by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), injuries resulting from accidents out of and in the course of employment are compensable. 

However, since the majority of the delivery riders do not have employee-employer relationship with the platform companies, maintaining their status as contractors or freelancers, delivery riders are left on their own.

Read: Not-so-safe delivery: Riders’ trip to unsafe working conditions

The Supreme Court ruled, in a decision favoring the Lazada riders, that protection must be afforded to the riders. “It is patently erroneous for the labor tribunals to reject an employer-employee relationship simply because the Contract stipulates that this relationship does not exist.”

The Supreme Court found that Lazada management failed to prove that their workers were independent contractors. The high court said that all factors in the four-fold test of employment were present in the working relationship of the riders to Lazada:  (a) the employer’s selection and engagement of the employee; (b) the payment of wages; (c) the power to dismiss; and (d) the power to control the employee’s conduct, the most important factor.

The Court ordered Lazada to reinstate the petitioners to their former positions as Lazada riders, with full backwages computed from the time of dismissal up to the time of actual reinstatement. This decision challenged the rulings of the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) and the Court of Appeals which found that there was no employer-employee relationship between the petitioners and Lazada E-Services Philippines, Inc.

Read: Unstable platforms: How the ‘gig economy’ is pushing workers off the edge

Dire condition of female platform workers 

There are also many female workers in the platform economy sector. Cesario said in her speech before the Standard-Setting Committee on Decent Work in the ILC that 90 percent of the women in the platform economy sector, particularly in Thailand and Cambodia, are also unaware of their employment relationship with platform companies, nor provided with employment contracts. 

“These women juggle platform work and unpaid care work face long hours, poverty wages, algorithmic surveillance, and unsafe working conditions all without social protection,” Cesario said, adding that 98 percent of the female riders in Thailand earn too little to meet their basic needs.

“Many report road accidents, sexual harassment, and deactivation of accounts when taking sick leaves. They are excluded from collective bargaining, denied decent working conditions, and lack recognition in their national labor laws,” Cesario said.

The final round of negotiations will be at the 2026 ILC, with topics on social security, occupational health and safety, violence and harassment, details on remuneration, algorithmic management, data privacy, and steps to address worker misclassification.

“The stakes couldn’t be higher,” Simet said. “The ILO should close the legal loopholes that many companies exploit while increasing their profits and market shares. Anything less would be a missed opportunity to create a global foundation for just and fair conditions of work in the digital economy.” (AMU, DAA)