Success stories, blueprints and a vital tool for improving gig economy work
Breakthroughs and inspirational examples to learn from as the International Labour Conference kicks off this week.
The International Labour Conference in Geneva, scheduled for June 1-12, will feature a draft convention for platform workers on its agenda – this could be a game changer for the future of gig work across the world.
A worldwide convention, that governments can implement in national law, would mark a vital milestone for platform workers’ rights. Even though the expectations are high, the good news is that we don't have to wait for a signed international convention to start delivering better conditions for platform workers today. Regulatory models introduced across Australia, Colombia and New York City (USA) offer powerful, real-world blueprints to achieve practical success in improving the quality of work (and quality of life) of platform workers.
As of late as last month, Australia’s Fair Work Commission ordered an increase of pay to road transport drivers, explicitly including digital platform drivers, due to the recent spike in global fuel costs, and in what would be a landmark move, a minimum “safety net” rate of pay of at least AU$31.30 an hour for food delivery workers ($6 more than the minimum wage) is expected to come into effect from 1 July 2026.
Last year, Colombia passed Law 2466, which guarantees all platform delivery workers access to health insurance and occupational risk coverage for the first time. The Platform Workers’ Union have also reached an agreement with Colombia’s leading delivery company for minimum pay per delivery and a guaranteed rate per kilometre.
Argentina is moving in a similar direction: with a labour reform bill currently before Congress proposing that workers must receive full job details before accepting or rejecting an order. On top of this, the platforms should now be transparent about how workers are ranked to receive priority for jobs, how jobs are assigned, and why accounts are suspended or restricted.
Stories of Struggle and Achievement
In recent weeks, webinars and podcast interviews held by WageIndicator have shed light on success stories, like in New York City where Biju Matthew from the International Alliance of App-based Transport Workers says that his home union was able to unify both the platform taxi drivers and traditional yellow cab drivers to organise, protest and eventually pass fairer laws. They were able to successfully introduce a “utilization rate” for drivers which pays higher per-mile and per-minute base rates to make up for lost time waiting for fares, while also capping the number of app vehicles on the road to stop the oversaturation which forced drivers to sit and provide hours of unpaid readiness labour for free.
The sessions and interviews, at the same time, have illuminated the stories of platform workers who face deep financial insecurity and harsh restraints. Nine-year veteran platform worker, Wuri Ramawati, leader of the Active Drivers Communication Forum in Indonesia, shared in a recent webinar that the algorithms in the apps that she works for stop offering her tasks if she doesn't constantly accept them, something she finds extremely hard to do with two children to care for.
“But if I turn down tasks, my account goes quiet. The system punishes me for being a mum,” says Wuri Ramawati, a nine-year veteran driver and mother of two.
Algorithmic Penalties and Low Pay: a Structural Problem
This algorithmic penalty highlights a widespread structural issue. A core problem that still persists across the globe is that tech platforms classify workers as independent contractors, shifting the costs and risks that would normally fall on an employer onto the worker instead. Research shows that in many cases workers don't even earn minimum wage (also because they are often not covered under its schemes) – let alone a Living Wage– by classifying workers as "independent contractors." Under this model, very often standard labour protections simply do not apply.
A gig delivery worker in Australia might average around AU$21 per hour across their shifts but that figure obscures the real picture; the driver must pay for their own work-related insurances, fuel, vehicle maintenance, registration, and phone data, not to mention absorbing the time spent sitting in traffic or waiting for food to be prepared. Once those exact numbers are deducted, their real hourly take-home pay plummets.
The Australian Closing Loopholes Acts and Labour Costs
Through years of strategic lobbying, policy design and relentless organising, Australian unions pushed a newly elected federal government to pass the landmark Closing Loopholes Acts. For about a decade, the gig economy relied on structural loopholes: apps paid workers only for a completed delivery or ride, meaning time spent in gridlock or waiting at restaurant counters was essentially unpaid. The Acts took a significant step forward to set Minimum Standards Orders, which, after some final consultation, are expected to come into effect on July 1, 2026 – this would include a minimum hourly rate, personal injury insurance and “cost recovery” for vehicle, equipment and labour costs.
This concept of cost recovery – ensuring workers are compensated for the true costs of doing their job, not just the minutes of active work – is at the heart of WageIndicator's conceptualisation of the Living Tariff and its free-to-use Living Tariff Tool, which was co-developed with GIZ. Since 2012, WageIndicator has developed Living Wage estimates across 186 countries, establishing what workers need to earn to afford basic necessities like housing, nutritious food, utilities and healthcare. The concept has also been extended to other groups: a Living Income for smallholders, a Living Pension for retirees, along with the Living Tariff for the self-employed and platform workers.
The Living Tariff Tool takes the Living Wage baseline and layers on top the real costs that traditional employment usually obscures: vehicle depreciation, commercial insurance, fluctuating fuel costs, income taxes, and the 'benefits gap' which are the retirement contributions and sick leave that employers normally cover but self-employed workers must fund themselves.
It also factors in the hidden costs that rarely make it into pay calculations: training, administration, client acquisition time, and job-related expenses like laptops, helmets, or fuel costs, plus unpaid idle time spent waiting between jobs. Currently available for 6 countries on a localised level, the Living Tariff isn't a benchmark to aspire to – it is a minimum floor. And for the millions of platform workers earning far below it, it would represent a life-changing improvement.
The Transport Workers Union's Long-Standing Fight
In Australia, the structural victories for platform workers did not happen overnight. Jack Boutros from the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU) of Australia shared during a recent WageIndicator webinar that securing these historic legislative rights required years of relentless campaigning.
Confronted by a government that consistently stalled progress, the union turned to the opposition parties: the TWU handed politicians fully refined policy frameworks and pre-packaged authoritative talking points that both the politicians and the media could utilise in public debates. By the time the opposition won the election and came into power in 2022, they had a comprehensive framework almost completely ready to implement.
“Workers were being deactivated for a safety issue or refusing to perform work that they didn't want to do, despite these platforms complaining that their work was flexible.” – Jack Boutros, Strategic Campaigner at TWU
The initial promise of the platform economy was to give workers flexibility – but in practice, it’s been seen across the world that this flexibility has its limits and comes with a price. A prime example in Australia that Jack Boutros describes, was preparing against the all too common argument from platform companies: that regulation hinders the flexibility that workers crave. The union flipped the script on this, showing that fairer rules increase flexibility and ensure workers can reject unwanted tasks without facing penalties. He adds that a lack of job transparency around critical trip details like drop-off destinations and expected payments was a central issue, saying “platforms conceal this information in order to use information asymmetries to pressure workers into accepting jobs and control their work.”
In Australia, UberEats and Doordash eventually came to the table, collaborating with the TWU to submit the Minimum Standard Orders that include the minimum safety-net pay rates for time spent from accepting a trip until completion for all transport types including bicycles, motorbikes and cars.
As regulatory models from across the world prove, blueprints for change already exist – and they are working. The tools are there too: with WageIndicator's Living Tariff concept and the adjacent Living Tariff Tool giving policymakers, unions and workers a clear, localised picture of what fair pay for gig workers actually looks like.
An opportunity to create lasting change
The International Labour Conference over the coming weeks represents a real opportunity to set modern global standards while building the momentum, attention and networks that lasting change requires. However, as WageIndicator's global labour law expert Iftikhar Ahmad points out, the current draft text creates a two-tier system – platform workers in an ‘employment relationship’ receive binding minimum wage protections, while self-employed workers only receive these guarantees 'to the extent possible and as appropriate.' In practice, that discretionary language risks leaving the majority of platform workers – classified as independent contractors – without meaningful protection.
The text should be strengthened to extend binding protections to self-employed platform workers too – and if it doesn't change, the Living Tariff already exists as a practical benchmark to be adopted for setting fair pay floors globally. Either way, it’s now long overdue to close the loopholes that the platform economy was built on – and inspiringly, in parts of the world it’s already happening.
