A Level Playing Field for Gig Workers - October 27, 2023

How can a level playing field be created in the platform economy, for example through collective bargaining, worker representation and alternative ownership and governance?

More and more people find short term work in the gig economy: the phenomenon where online platforms intermediate between demand and supply of labour in a physical or online work environment. As a central entity and private regulator, the platform usually decides the rules of the game without consultation of the workers and clients. These platforms centralise a fragmented market and have the best information position, which creates an imbalance in power between intermediator and users (worker and client).

In the general debate, there are some complaints about platforms advancing on this and working on maintaining (and growing) this disbalance. But the nuance and context are missing. In this webinar, In this webinar, we want to explore the exact problem and analyze the different strategies to give workers their negotiation power back and let them build a collective voice. We also want to search for good practises of initiatives and individuals worldwide that are successfully working in the gig economy with this purpose. To conclude with a roadmap to a gig economy that works for all.

Location: Zoom
Date and time: October 27, 2023 | 2 pm - 3.30 pm CEST

Agenda

Welcome

2.00pm - 2.05pm

Fiona Dragstra

Director WageIndicator Foundation

Welcoming all attendants and explaining the rules of engagement

Opening Keynote

2.05pm - 2.15pm

Uma Rani

Senior Economist at the Research Department of the International Labour Office (ILO)

Uma Rani is Senior Economist at the Research Department of the International Labour Office. She has conducted research on informal economy, minimum wages, poverty and inequality issues with a focus on gender. Since 2016 she has been working on digital transformations in the world of work, wherein she tries to explore how labour and social institutions could be strengthened to address economic and social inequality. She coordinated the major flagship report of the ILO on "World Employment and Social Outlook 2021: The role of digital labour platforms in transforming the world of work” and co-edited the special issue on "Women, work and the digital economy" for Gender and Development, 2022.

Panel Discussion

2.15pm - 2.50pm

Moderator: Valeria PuLIGNano

Professor in Sociology at the Centre for Sociological Research (CESO) AT KU Leuven

Valeria Pulignano has published extensively on topics related to the sociology of work, comparative European industrial (employment) relations, labour markets and inequality, working conditions, job quality and workers’ voice. She serves as Principal Coordinator of the research network on Work, Employment and Industrial Relations within the European Sociological Association. She is PI of a ERC Advanced Grant ResPecTMe where she studies the forms of unpaid labour in the platform economy, creative industries and care and the way in which they account for– and develop a measurement of - precarious work.

Mark Stuart

Pro Dean for Research and Innovation at Leeds University Business School

Mark Stuart is the Montague Burton Professor of Human Resource Management and Employment Relations at Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds. He is the co-director of the ESRC Digital Futures at Work Research centre. His research interests focus on the dynamics of organisational restructuring and skill formation, trade union strategy and change and the modernisation of employment relations. Most recently, Mark's research has focused on the impact of new digital technologies on the future of work and employment. He is a principal investigator at the Leeds Index of Platform Labour Protest.

Denise Kasparian

Assistant Professor and Researcher at University of Buenos Aires and National Scientific and Technical Research Council - Argentina

Denise Kasparian is a researcher of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council and an assistant professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. She is a sociologist and holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires. Her latest book Co-operative Struggles (Brill, 2022) expands the theoretical horizons regarding labour unrest by proposing new categories to make visible and conceptualize conflicts in the new worker cooperativism of the twenty-first century.

Iftikhar Ahmad

Global Labour Law Manager at WageIndicator Foundation

Iftikhar Ahmad is a comparative labour law expert and founder of the Centre for Labour Research, Pakistan. He heads the Labour Law team at WageIndicator, where he has helped raise awareness about labour rights in more than 100 countries. Iftikhar is also a member of the Labour Expert Group, constituted on the advice of the Prime Minister of Pakistan, to provide social protection to the informal economy workers. While working in the field of labour since 2006, he has been engaged with the Government of Pakistan, International Labour Organization and the World Bank on the labour market and legislative reform issues.

Good Practices

2.45pm - 3.20pM

In the Good Practices section, we will present a mapping of 25 initiatives worldwide that contribute to a more level playing field in the gig economy. We will look at organizing, bottom-up initiatives, court cases, regulation, developments by external service providers and platforms that changed their policy for the benefit of the worker. Access the Map with 25 Good Practices in the Global Platform Economy.

Moderator: Martijn Arets

Martijn is an international expert and thinker in the field of emergence and development of the platform economy. Since 2012 Martijn is traveling the world to talk to entrepreneurs, experts and other stakeholders. Martijn advices corporations, national and local governments and other institutions. He is part of the gig team of the Wageindicator Foundation and the Platform Economy research group at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. Moreover, Martijn is the founder of GigCV: an easy tool for anyone working in or gaining work experience in the gig economy.

More info

Markus Steinhauser

Co-Founder, Testbirds

Markus Steinhauser is co-founder of crowdtesting specialist Testbirds. He is responsible for global operations as well as the further development of the testing portfolio. Together with the Testbirds team and the more than one million freelancers in the crowd, Markus strives to shape the digital world of tomorrow. Markus also co-initiated the crowdworking code of conduct in 2015 and has been working with various platforms and institutions to ensure fair crowdworking conditions for the future.

Ricardo Scattini

CTO and CPO at Nippy

Ricardo Scanttini is Chief Technical Officer and Chief Product Officer at Nippy: the first online Workertech that seeks to accompany gig economy freelancers, creating benefits and services for each of them. Impacting the work culture, migration, and the gig economy. The B2B2C business model, where Nippy provided technology and artificial intelligence services to the gig economy platforms, improves the capture, retention, and productivity of riders and drivers through memberships, benefits through a fintech service. By helping platforms in the gig economy to offer additional facilities for workers as a service provider, Nippy's ambition is to work towards a more sustainable gig economy.