The Fairwork Foundation: strategies for online platform work

Jamie Woodcock, Mark Graham As ever more people from low-income
countries connect to the Internet, these workers are placed into
fierce competition with one another. Lacking the ability to
collectively bargain, these workers have little ability to
negotiate wages or working conditions with their employers who are
often on the other side of the world. Many workers have jobs
characterized by long and irregular hours, low income, and high
stress. The international nature of digital work means that it
tends largely to be done outside of the purview of national
governments, with very few employers paying attention to relevant
existing regulation in either their home countries or the worker’s
home country. International digital labour platforms threaten to
undermine workers’ ability to defend existing jobs, liveable wages,
and dignified working conditions, in both low- and high-income
countries. In almost all types of platform-mediated work, workers
themselves have found it extremely challenging to exert any sort of
power to bargain with the platform. This workshop will present the
Fairwork Foundation as a strategy to address the issue of fair work
on online platforms. Taking inspiration from the Fairtrade
movement, this approach involves a programme of innovative data
collection alongside a certification of the quality of work on
these platforms.  The German Ministry for Cooperation and
Development supports the work of the Fairwork Foundation.