Apps can be like a ‘slave ship’, says ILO director – 03/25/2023 – Market

Regulations aimed at app workers must take into account social protection measures and transparency of the algorithm to avoid reproducing work models from the 19th century, says the director of the ILO (International Labor Organization) in Brazil, Vinícius Pinheiro.

“It’s an incredible technology, it creates a market, it matches [combinação de interesses]. But this cannot happen to the detriment of working conditions”, he says, adding that platforms specialized in domestic services, for example, have come to be compared to “new slave ships”.

Pinheiro cites the difficulty of identifying the leaders of each segment of workers as one of the obstacles to the discussion on regulating apps.

For him, the State needs to be able to supervise application workers. “In the same way that companies provide information regarding their employees, platforms should also have this obligation”, he told the Sheet.

The Brazilian government is forming a group to study the issue of regulating workers by application. Do you participate in any way?

I was with the minister [Luiz Marinho]. This group will be made up of representatives of applications, the private sector, and the government. First, it’s important to recognize the role apps have played during the pandemic and are playing in job creation.

There are three important elements. First the issue of employment status. What is the employment relationship? In general, the platform is a job intermediary. So you have an algorithm that matches supply and demand. But in some cases, if that is the primary source of employment and the worker works a set amount of hours, then you have an employment relationship that is professional. We cannot call him an entrepreneur or a partner if this relationship is characterized in accordance with the legislation.

Therefore, some countries have started to consider the worker who offers services on these platforms as an employee. This is the discussion that has to happen in Brazil. What are the criteria that define that the worker who is providing services to a platform will be employed? These criteria can go through the amount of hours worked, whether this is the main income or not.

What else needs to be discussed?

Another point concerns the transparency of the algorithm. What are the criteria for defining remuneration? On some platforms, the employee never knows how much he will earn at the end of the race. This unpredictability of remuneration may be inconsistent with the employment relationship.

And finally, the ability to supervise the application. In the same way that companies provide information regarding their employees, platforms should also have an obligation to provide this information.

This mass of workers there is unknown. If it is necessary to verify length of service, this data is non-existent. But the heart of the matter is: how to maintain this power to generate opportunities, jobs, innovation, but at the same time guarantee workers’ rights?

It is not possible that someone who works 48 hours for a platform does not have access to social protection, does not have time for retirement, does not have access to accident insurance.

Has any country already found a model that makes sense for the Brazilian reality?

In many cases, courts have decided, not legislators. But you have several interesting cases. For example, in Colombia they are advancing in relation to hours. The working hour defines whether the worker should be considered employed or not.

It is a case similar to that of the maid. If you come twice a week, if you do 16 hours, then you are a day laborer and you can be MEI [microempreendedor individual] or self-employed contributor. If you work more than 16 hours, you must have a signed work permit.

They are experiments. In some cases too much power has been given to collective bargaining. There are platforms that have started to negotiate with their providers what the administration fee will be, how it will vary.

A problem we have in Brazil is the difficulty of identifying leaders. In European countries, the leadership was clearer, application provider unions were set up and these unions were able to guarantee basic conditions, minimum wage, a guaranteed minimum of travel, a margin that the platform cannot take from the salary, access to health insurance .

I believe it is possible to advance towards a regulation that, at the same time, maintains the level of innovation and the ability to facilitate the intermediation of the platform, but which improves the working conditions of providers.

What are the excesses identified on the platforms?

There are many types of platform. Those for food delivery, which intermediate services, which can also be abusive. Something that has gained a lot of support are the platforms for hiring domestic workers.

Instead of hiring a worker, you hire the platform and they send a different person every day. People are affiliated with the platform as MEIs, as self-employed workers.

Fenatrad Representatives [Federação Nacional das Trabalhadoras Domésticas] already said: they are the new slave ships. First you have to be available. You wake up at 6 am, you have to have your phone on and you don’t know if you’re going to work or not. And, when you go, no matter how much you earn the minimum wage, there is a deduction, the platform takes a part, and it does not explain this data.

Reminds me of 19th century conditions. In New York, in Times Square, that was it. Some workers would go there, they would wait. ‘Ah, such a ship will arrive’. ‘Ah, now you need one, two, three, four’. He took the form, whoever arrived first went.

It’s the same now. You have a type of work organization that doesn’t have the minimum of predictability about whether you’re going to work or not, whether you’re going to have an income at the end of the month that will allow you to pay a house payment, have access to credit.

It’s an incredible technology, it creates the market, it matches. But this cannot happen to the detriment of working conditions. It cannot have this cutting-edge technology, but reproducing working conditions from the 19th century.

All these questions will be on the table. It is important to evolve towards fairer models, which at the same time lead to increased business, because nobody is talking about eliminating platforms.

In the last elections, the country experienced situations of electoral harassment. How to prevent this from happening again?

Electoral harassment is part of the larger category of moral harassment. You can harass a worker either to induce him to an electoral option or else to demoralize him.

If Brazil had the certificate, the 190 convention before, it could be that these actions would have been better contained, because then we would have legal and normative instruments for this type of action. Regarding harassment, the TST [Tribunal Superior do Trabalho] registered last year 22,000 cases of moral harassment, and that includes electoral harassment. Of sexual harassment, there were 4,500 [casos].

When the process arrives, it means that several barriers have already been overcome. The person has already complained, there was no response, he has already entered the conflict, maybe he has been fired. That’s where the process started. If you take the number of harassment that actually happens it must be ten times higher.

And it is important to say on this topic that it is not just a moral and ethical imperative, it is also a matter of productivity. The worst that can happen on a team is that you have a person who is being harassed. This has an impact on the whole group, on the health system, on Social Security, because the person goes on leave, will receive INSS benefits for a while. It has an impact on mental health.

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Vinícius Pinheiro, 51

Economist and Master in Political Science from UNB, he was Deputy Minister of Social Security and Secretary of Social Security from 1998 to 2002. He served as the main specialist in Social Security at the OECD and was a consultant for the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. Between 2020 and 2022, he held the position of ILO Regional Director for the Latin America and Caribbean region.