GCRF Decent Work: FAIRWORK in the Platform Economy in the Global South

有数百万平台工作者生活在世界各地，在零工经济中通过数字平台或应用程序进行外包或组织工作。这些工作可以包括各种各样的工作，比如使用Uber驾驶出租车，在Upwork上翻译，或者通过亚马逊的土耳其机器人训练机器学习算法。尽管这些工作有可能为那些需要工作的人提供工作，但平台工人几乎没有能力与他们的雇主谈判工资和工作条件，而雇主通常在世界的另一边。我们之前的研究表明，平台通常以相对不受监管的方式运作，并且可以鼓励工人在捍卫现有工作，生活工资和有尊严的工作条件的能力方面进行竞争。在南非，平台工作的潜力和风险都是显而易见的。从某些方面来看，这个国家是世界上收入不平等程度最高的国家，失业率高达28%。与此同时，该国拥有相对发达的互联网基础设施，以及相对稳定的政治气候和国家/法律的机构。这些因素使该国成为一个平台经济刚刚起步的地方，使我们能够与法律和社会科学的多学科团队共同开发解决方案，这将为影响数字工作的政策和实践提供切实的机会。随着其他中等收入和低收入国家迅速发展互联网基础设施，数百万潜在的数字工作者在网上寻找机会，如果我们要避免当前数字工作世界正在形成的一些“逐底竞争”，那么本项目提出的干预措施将是至关重要的。我们的项目将在两个关键举措中达到高潮。首先，在法律的研究工作包的基础上，将制定一项业务守则，作为一种解释性工具，概述如何使现有条例适用于平台工人。第二，我们将建立一个“公平工作基金会”。就像公平贸易基金会能够认证咖啡或巧克力等商品的生产链一样，公平工作基金会将认证平台经济的生产网络，从而利用消费者的力量为数字工人的福利和工作质量做出重大贡献。该工作计划不仅旨在揭示公平和不公平工作的发生地点，还旨在将这些知识编入“公平工作认证计划”和平台年度排名中。这两项举措最终将为高质量的数字化工作环境制定一个国际标准。这些目标将通过5个项目阶段实现。首先，法律团队将分析S。非洲劳动法、社会保障法以及其他与平台经济有关的法律的和政策规定，并询问如何调整这些法律，为数字平台工作者提供体面的工作标准。与此同时，社会科学团队将使用定性和定量相结合的方法来绘制S所面临的关键问题。非洲平台工作者：对平台工作可能无法达到体面工作标准的原因有了深入的了解。第三，我们为全球北方以外的平台工作制定有意义的体面工作标准。第四，我们采用这些标准，并在行动研究过程中使用它们，在这个过程中，我们寻求认证数字工作平台：如果它们通过，则为其分配Fairwork认证。最后，通过利益相关者与工人、平台和政策制定者的广泛接触和外联，我们计划了一项短期战略，迫使平台改变政策以改善工作条件，以及一项长期战略，影响监管在目前高度不受监管的行业中的方向。

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.