Making Platform Work Fairer: Toward Decent Work in the Platform Economy

As digitalisation is changing the world of work in Pakistan, platform-based jobs such as ride-hailing, delivery services, call center work, and online freelancing are expanding rapidly. While these opportunities promise flexibility, many workers face insecurity, including the absence of written contracts, minimum wages, social protection, and the right to organise. 

According to the Fairwork Pakistan Ratings 2023, around 700,000 workers are engaged in platform work in the country, yet none of the six major platforms evaluated met the minimum standards of fair work, scoring 0 out of 10 across principles like fair pay, contracts, and worker representation. 

Pakistani trade union leader, Asad Mehmood, General Secretary, Pakistan Workers Federation (PWF) highlights these realities and explaining how trade unions are organising platform workers and advocates for legal recognition, fair wages, social security, and a just digital transition that ensures technology empowers workers rather than undermines their rights.

Tserendash Batlhagva has been working as a taxi driver on the UBCab platform in Ulaanbaatar for the last four years. He shares about his daily routine and what it means to work through a digital taxi platform. Most days begin very early in the morning, when demand for rides is highest as people travel to work or school. For Batlhagva, driving through the platform is a way to earn a living and support his family.

At the same time, the work also comes with certain challenges. Platform drivers usually do not have a formal employment contract, and social or health insurance is not provided by the company. If drivers want to be insured, they must arrange and pay for it themselves. Income can also change depending on the season or the number of passengers requesting rides.

His experience provides a closer look at how platform-based taxi work functions in Mongolia today and sheds light on the everyday realities many drivers face in the expanding platform economy.

“AI does make our lives more comfortable as human beings, but from the perspective of delivery riders who have to work under AI systems or platform algorithms, they face quite a lot of instability in their careers.”

Duangsomphong Wanglap (Toey), young labour organizer from Workers' Union Thailand explains how digitalisation and AI are shaping the precarious lives of platform workers in Thailand. 

As Platform corporations are taking the form of global value chain with offshore companies around the world, platform riders are facing insecurity, often sometimes their performance is evaluated by platform algorithms which can suspend their jobs, while they are also affected by declining pay rates, opaque algorithmic management, and the absence of social protection.

When a delivery rider in the Philippines gets offboarded from an app, they lose their income immediately: no investigation, no appeal, no recourse. One complaint ends with a livelihood lost.

“Security of tenure” is the right of a worker to keep their job unless there is just cause and due process. For platform workers in the Philippines, it barely exists.

Geoffrey Labudahon, National Coordinator of RIDERS-SENTRO, has spent years organizing delivery riders in the Philippines fighting for exactly that. The platform economy raises a question that goes beyond any single country: when the app holds all the power and workers hold none, what does a decent and dignified life actually look like for the delivery people keeping our cities running?