Platform Work and Fair Pay
It is essential that electronic forms of work organization, management, and control guarantee adequate remuneration for workers. Adequate remuneration is a genuine right.
The Importance of Adequate Compensation
Adequate remuneration is one of the most important Rights of Truth and represents a historic and social achievement. It is a right guaranteed by Brazilianand international lawand cannot be reversed.
The importance of adequate and predictable remuneration for the life of a worker and their family is evident.
The amount of remuneration must take into account the quality of life of workers and their families and not just be sufficient for their survival. It must cover expenses related to food, housing, clothing, transportation, health, education, rest, leisure, vacations, etc.
It is also necessary to recognize the importance of adequate remuneration for the quality of working conditions.
Low wages or wages linked to tasks and targets imposed by companies result in long working hours and intensified work, i.e., workers seeking to increase their income. This situation can put workers' health and lives at risk.
Platforms and Compensation
The way in which many digital platforms classify their workers as self-employed and organize their work and remuneration results in a combination that, while subordinating their workforce, transfers to them a large part of the risks and costs of business activity.
In such cases, digital platforms set prices for the services offered and determine the form and amount of workers' remuneration, exclusively and without any negotiation.
Furthermore, digital platform business models that pay their workers only when they are performing a service are common. In other words, the time they spend logged in and available to the platforms, waiting for an order or a service, is not remunerated.
In this way, many platforms transfer part of the risks of their economic activity to workers. For example, a “slow” day in terms of customers has less impact on the business of certain platforms because workers are at their disposal without any remuneration.
The transfer of economic activity costs is also very harmful to workers, as they are the ones who bear the costs of purchasing and maintaining the work tools (motorcycle, car, bicycle, fuel, helmet, cell phone, phone plan, bags, etc.) necessary to perform the services determined on various platforms.
All of this further reduces workers' wages, forcing them to work long and excessive hours in search of higher pay.
4,8h
is the average number of extra hours that platform delivery workers work compared to non-platform workers.
47,9h
is the average weekly working hours of delivery workers for digital platforms.
1%
The extra amount is how much, on average, drivers per platform earn more for a workday that is 17.1% longer than that of non-platform drivers.
Platforms and Wage Discrimination
The control exercised by various digital platforms over workers' remuneration can take an even more complex and harmful form.
Several platforms have the ability to dynamically determine, in real time, which activities will be offered to a given worker, what price will be charged to the customer, how much of that amount will go to the platform, and how much will be paid to the worker.
These decisions are made automatically on many digital platforms and may be based on data collected from workers and
consumers and in the automated construction of profiles on the behavior of both, using algorithmic management.
It is unclear and non-transparent how different digital platforms store and use this information. For example, whether and how a worker's activity history on the platform influences the distribution and pricing of tasks/services.
The lack of transparency about how algorithmic work management works results in uncertainty and instability for workers' remuneration.
Furthermore, it may imply wage discrimination based on worker profiles constructed from data captured by algorithmic management. This violates important principles of labor protection law, such as equal pay for equal work, and contributes to competition among workers, leading to a decrease in income that harms the workforce as a whole.
Therefore, ensuring respect for adequate remuneration is fundamental for workers, but not only for them. For society as a whole, adequate remuneration for workers is an important tool for combating social inequalities. It is crucial for society as a whole in the pursuit of sustainable and ecological economic development.
That is why, in the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 8 sets targets for promoting decent work and economic development. And one of the pillars of decent work is adequate remuneration.