Non-standard forms of employment and crowdwork/on- demand work: labour protection challenges and possible policy responses Manuela Tomei Conditions of Work and Equality Department International Labour Organization March 2016

A transforming world of work In advanced economies, the incidence of wage and salaried employment is declining, while own-account work and non-standard forms of employment (NSFE) are on the rise. New technology, changes in the way enterprises organize production, decline in collective bargaining coverage and labour market reforms are behind the shift away from the standard employment relationship and the spread of new forms of work. NSFE can create jobs and can respond to demands of enterprises and workers for greater flexibility, …but can also weaken workers’ protection and result into increased inequalities between return to labour and to capital as well as among workers themselves

Wage penalties associated with NSFE Non-standard workers (NSW) earn less for comparable work. Wage penalties for NSW range between 1 and 34 per cent in developed countries and are due to: unequal treatment relative to standard workers the probationary nature of some NSFE shorter tenure of non-standard workers due to less stable employment exclusion of NSW from corporate benefits, such as regular bonuses and overtime payment wage penalties are usually smaller for part time workers as compared to temporary or temporary agency workers (Report for discussion at the ILO tripartite Meeting of experts on non-standard forms of employment, February 2015 )

Non-standard forms of employment and digitalisation NSFE include: Temporary and casual employment Temporary agency work and other contractual arrangement involving multiple parties Disguised employment relationship and dependent SE Part-time employment, including marginal part-time Digitalisation spurs new forms of non-standard employment: Crowdemployment (Amazon Turk, Crowdflower) Work on-demand via apps (Uber, Lyft)

NSFE and Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining ILC (101st session): “the increase in non-standard forms of employment, in cases in which the national legislation does not adequately regulate them, raises questions concerning the full exercise of fundamental principles and rights at work.” Legal restrictions on the right of FoA and CB, where they exist, mainly concern workers in contractual arrangements involving multiple parties. Most common challenge is inability to exercise rights in practice, stemming from: Fragmentation of the bargaining unit when there are multiple labour providers Workers on FTCs may fear their contract will not be renewed if they join trade union

Concerns connected to crowdwork/on demand work 1.Pay of the tasks 2.Availability of work 3.Unfair treatment by requesters and “deactivation” 4.Lack of responsiveness of the platforms to the workers’ concerns 5.Unilateral flexibility and «light» exclusivity clauses 6.Devaluation and disguising of work and workers 7.Platforms set the rules of the game

ILO survey of crowdworkers Platform AllCrowdflowerAMT U.S.India Survey 11, Survey Survey sample by platform and country (no. of respondents) Who are they? How many crowdwork for a living? What other jobs do they do and what did they do before? How is the financial security of their household? Source: ILO Survey of Crowdworkers.

Hourly pay by platform and country CrowdflowerAMT - USAAMT - India Median hourly pay $0.94$4.65$1.65 Mean hourly pay $1.77$5.55$3.17 Standard deviation $2.61$3.97$4.24 Observations Note: Trimmed at 99% and $0 responses removed. Results are from Survey 1. Source: ILO Survey of Crowdworkers.

94% have had work rejected/ were refused payment "When you work at a real job, you are given time to learn and make mistakes and are given feedback, but in crowdwork, the first time you make a mistake (usually for a task that has vague instructions) you are rejected and maybe even blocked" - AMT worker

Social security contributions among US-AMT workers Do any of your jobs take out social security from your paycheck, or do you make voluntary contributions to social security?

Proposed remedies to insecurity of crowdwork/on-demand work: Benefit portability? The safety net follows the worker from job to gig and employer to employer. However, portability does not mean security- without guarantees of minimum amounts of work, there is no income security An intermediate category of workers? New definitions and tests to be applied-risk of uncertainty Reorganize work and re cognize the employment relationship? Employers would be subject to MW provisions and workers would have possibility for negotiating higher wages

Contrasting casualization  Minimum guaranteed hours of work  Mandatory compensation for customers’ cancellation and delays  Contrast to abusive clauses  Support to self-organisation efforts via new or pre-existing actors  Include workers’ voices when advocating self-regulation

In conclusion Promote transitions from nonstandard to standard work arrangements, whenever possible. Combat misclassification and use NSFE only if and when justified. Broaden eligibility criteria and extending coverage of social protection to those in non-standard forms of work, e.g. through creating new contributory categories, simplifying registration and tax collection processes or subsidizing contributions to social protection systems. Ensure that adequate protection is in place for workers in all types of work arrangements by making fundamental principles and rights at work accessible to all workers.