Over the last several years, EU member states have experienced a rapid increase in platform work – non-standard work facilitated by online platforms which use digital technologies to ‘intermediate’ between individual suppliers (platform workers) and buyers of labour.
Concerns are being raised about the working conditions of platform workers and the risk of precariousness their situation involves. Precarious work creates precarious lives. European policymakers have identified working conditions in the platform economy as a priority in seeking to tackle the risks being faced by this category of worker.
In Malta, the Department for Industrial and Employment Relations (DIER) carried out an investigation last year and found that the employment conditions of local food couriers were not in line with the law. Delivery drivers were not getting enough time to rest and their employer deducted money from their first salary to pay for their clothing and work equipment. They were not always paid their statutory bonuses and cost-of-living increase while their overtime, sick leave and vacation leave were not covered. They were paid a flat rate on public holidays.
DIER recommended guidelines to improve this situation. But most of the 40 agencies that employ food delivery drivers are reportedly ignoring them.
Most stakeholders in the platform economy agree that the main challenge is the workers’ unclear employment status. Platform work is generally in a grey area in the labour market as the traditional legal concepts of employee/worker and self-employed are blurred. Their written conditions typically specify that platform workers are freelancers, irrespective of the actual conditions under which they work. Low-skilled on-location and online platform work deprives them of many of the legal rights that those who work in the traditional economy enjoy.
A study commissioned by the European Parliament, carried out by the Policy Department for Economic, Scientific and Quality of Life Policies Directorate-General for Internal Policies, identifies the risks faced by those engaged in low-skilled and online platform work. These include low, fragmented and unstable income, poor protection afforded by their working conditions, little or no access to training and career development and exposure to health and safety risks.
While the government prides itself on being a champion of minority rights, this country is experiencing the worrying growth of an underclass made up of vulnerable workers, many from Third World countries, who are deprived of the standard of social protection that gives them dignity. Trade unions often fret about the fall in their membership. Yet, they seem to have no strategy to fulfil their mission as the protectors of vulnerable workers by taking on the challenge of improving the conditions of platform workers.
Some will argue that platform work is a part of the global trend towards digitalisation in the economy and labour markets. But, by evading labour protection measures and pushing company risks onto the backs of workers through the gig model, platform work leads to precariousness in livelihoods and lives.
Stakeholders in the platform economy need to promote the collective organisation and representation of platform workers regardless of their legal status and nationality. The promotion of voluntary codes of conduct could go some way towards mitigating the risks of precarious work.
In the short term, more proactive enforcement of existing laws is necessary to promote decent working conditions and social justice for all workers.
Where necessary, the grey areas in industrial relations legislation should be clarified. Malta does not have to wait for guidelines and directives from international organisations like the EU, OECD and the ILO to provide more protection for these exploited workers.