App-based delivery drivers and drivers paid the minimum wage in Mexico celebrated the holidays with new legislative reform that recognizes them as workers and ensures their access to social security, accident insurance, pensions, maternity leave, company profits and a Christmas (holiday) bonus.
App-based delivery drivers and drivers paid the minimum wage in Mexico are now recognized as workers and have access to social security, accident insurance, pensions, maternity leave and company profits. Credit: UNTA
Some 658,000 workers are employed across Mexico on digital platforms, with 41 percent earning above the minimum wage. The National Union of App Workers (Unión Nacional de Trabajadores por Aplicación, UNTA) campaigned for the new law, taking a key role in urging its passage. Because of its advocacy, up to 2.5 million workers, according to Mexico’s government, will now have access to important social protections and benefits.
Mexico app-based drivers took part in a media conference as part of the campaign to pass a landmark law covering platform workers. Credit: Rubén Piña
In a media conference with its partner, the Solidarity Center, UNTA members expressed support for the regulation and also highlighted areas for improvement, such as recognizing connection time as part of total work hours. UNTA is an affiliate of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and part of its Latin American Platform Workers’ Network.
“This reform reaffirms what we have been saying for years: We are workers,” says the General Secretary of UNTA, Sergio Guerrero. “And after years of hard struggle, this historic achievement contributes to the dignity of digital workers in Mexico, Latin America and the world.”
Ensuring Decent Work for App-Based Jobs
With few formal economy jobs available, workers worldwide are turning to the platform-based economy to support themselves and their families. While the rapid increase in app-based jobs offers millions of workers additional avenues to earn money, it also creates new opportunities for employer exploitation through low wages, lack of health care and an absence of job safety.
According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), digital platforms have created new opportunities and blurred the labor relationship between employers and workers. As a result, the digital platform work model does not adhere to standards of decent work, or fundamental ILO treaties (“conventions”), especially those on freedom of association, collective bargaining and discrimination in employment and occupation. Digital platform workers often earn low wages and lack access to social protections, minimum wage protections, employment benefits such as paid vacation and opportunities for collective bargaining.
App-based drivers in Mexico waged multiple rallies in support of decent work. Credit: Iván Stephens
As in Mexico, app-based workers who drive motorbikes, bicycles and cars to deliver food and transport passengers receive no paid sick leave or vacation. They work long hours and rush between deliveries, risking their safety because if they do not, the app—via the company—punishes them by lowering pay. When drivers or deliverers are injured, they receive no compensation from their employers.
In Mexico, the law now addresses such issues, ensuring that workers have the flexibility to define their own working hours and requiring the employer—such as Didi, Rappi and Uber—to register workers in the nation’s social security program, covering occupational risks and providing access to health and housing benefits. Companies are required to register contracts with the government, which must detail working hours, income and algorithmic management rules.
Further addressing what workers describe as the company’s frequent abuse through algorithms, the law prohibits companies from charging for the use of the platform and obliges them to issue detailed payment receipts and respect digital disconnection outside working hours. It prohibits companies from manipulating workers’ income to avoid their classification as dependent on employers of digital platforms and blocks the collection of fees from workers for registration, use, separation or similar concepts related to the employment relationship.
In Mexico, digital companies now must guarantee the publication of algorithmic management policies and may not manipulate income to distort the employment relationship or carry out contractual simulations. The law also prohibits withholding of workers’ wages. The new law in Mexico is one of the most progressive in the world in regulating work through digital platforms, guaranteeing fundamental labor rights.
The Solidarity Center established the ILAW Network in 2018 as a way for pro-labor lawyers worldwide to bring together legal practitioners and scholars in an exchange of ideas and information in order to best represent the rights and interests of workers and their organizations wherever they may be.
ILAW lawyers working together have taken legal strategies that are successful in one country and deploy them elsewhere. In doing so, they have set new legal precedents that build a stronger foundation for the expansion of worker rights around the globe.
Credit: Mosa’ab Elshamy
Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau welcomed attendees, describing the network of over 1,300 members in more than 90 countries as “uniquely situated to take on global corporations suppressing worker rights.”
She cited the successful advocacy of women labor lawyers for new International Labor Organization (ILO) treaties, like Convention 189 on domestic workers and Convention 190 on violence and harassment.
Solidarity Center Rule of Law Director and ILAW Network Chair Jeffrey Vogt laid out the conference’s purpose. “Around the world, the rights of workers and unions are under attack. Employers are well-resourced and coordinated in their efforts to shape law and policy. It is essential that workers and unions do the same. Through ILAW, we can learn from each other, build from successes and failures, and strengthen our impact through legal solidarity.”
Credit: Mosa’ab Elshamy
The importance of interconnectedness was woven throughout many plenary sessions and discussions. Networking, learning from and collaborating across countries and regions was a key part of the conference, as attendees talked about the commonalities of their work.
The opening plenary, moderated by Solidarity Center’s Rule of Law Deputy Director Monika Mehta, focused on the impact of technology in the world of work, including but not only digital platform workers, from Amazon warehouses workers to content moderators for major social media firms.
Panelist Liz Lenjo described the content moderators in Kenya who filed a lawsuit against Meta (the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads) and Sama, the local contractor, citing poor working conditions, union busting and inadequate mental health support.
These workers were hired to screen posts, videos and messages for Facebook and remove harmful or offensive content. Workers spent hours viewing violent and disturbing images and videos. They were left on their own to deal with the psychological trauma. In a landmark ruling, the Kenyan court determined it had jurisdiction over Meta.
Credit: Mosa’ab Elshamy
Sandra Muñoz discussed how women in Colombia’s parliament recently passed legislation to harassment in the workplace and linked the fight for equality to equality for all. “Unless we can overcome inequality,” Muñoz said, “we can’t overcome inequality as a whole.”
Kayan Leung also described successful litigation she undertook in South Africa to establish parity in paid parental leave in order that the responsibility of care does not default to women. The ILAW Network filed an amicus brief in that case.
During the panel on Just Transition, Angelica Maria Palacios Martinez spoke about the efforts to get Colombia’s government to recognize trade unions’ essential role in Just Transition and protecting the whole population. “From the trade union world, we have called out the government to recognize us as a key player, she said, “so that these public policies are focused on protecting the entire population, and in particular, protecting the workers.”
Abdullah Nahid of the Maldives, one of the countries most affected by climate change, described union efforts to support workers in the tourism and fisheries sector.
On the panel on the informal economy, Madhulika Tatigotla discussed the growth of the informal economy in India. India’s informal economy continues to grow, as the formal sector continues to informalize as, for example, 40 percent of factory workers are now on temporary contracts. Recently, workers and their legal advocates developed a comprehensive draft law for workers in the informal economy to extend labor rights and benefits.
In the final right to strike plenary, Paapa Danquah noted the increasing international threats to the right to strike, linking it to civil liberties. “The attack on the right to strike on the international level is the first step to taking away the right to strike everywhere,” Danquah said. “Whenever you see attacks on the right to strike, there are also attacks on collective bargaining and civil liberty.” He described how the ITUC was involved in litigation before the International Court of Justice to protect the right to strike as a principle of international law.
As the conference ended, attendees discussed priorities for the coming year, from more collaboration between all members to deepening national and regional labor law networks, cross-pollination between ILAW regions, increasing engagement with social movements and Indigenous communities in order to support union growth. Attendees left the conference energized and committed to forging a robust labor law network for a stronger global labor movement.
World Cotton Day – October 9, 2024: As ubiquitous as cotton is in our everyday lives, the workers who produce and harvest this foundational crop are often invisible. This was long the case in Uzbekistan, where for decades the government forcibly mobilized millions of people, sometimes including children, to harvest cotton for state-owned enterprises. A long-running global advocacy campaign led by the Cotton Campaign, of which Solidarity Center was a founding member, helped push the government to implement reforms that brought that system to an end in 2021.
Ending state-organized forced labor was a major accomplishment, but establishing just and equitable working conditions in the cotton sector is a longer journey. With support from the U.S. Department of Labor, the Solidarity Center is working to put in place building blocks that will allow workers to ensure their rights are protected. The Solidarity Center signed an agreement with the Ministry of Employment and Poverty Reduction of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the project’s co-implementing partner, the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), in December 2022 to begin project work. As the 2023 harvest season gets underway, Solidarity Center and CIPE are working closely with stakeholders in government, civil society and business to work from the field up and from oversight authorities down to build knowledge within the cotton sector about fundamental rights and strengthen mechanisms to ensure those rights are secured.
For the 2023 harvest, this includes:
In collaboration with the ministry’s labor inspection and legal team, the Solidarity Center and CIPE have prepared and printed more than 10,000 leaflets for distribution to cotton pickers during the ongoing harvest season. These leaflets provide cotton pickers with accessible and comprehensive information about their fundamental rights as seasonal workers under Uzbekistan’s Labor Code. The content covers essential worker protections and includes critical contact information, such as the Labor Inspection hotline and a project-run Telegram channel, where workers can anonymously report violations and seek free legal consultation. The leaflets have been also distributed to groups working in different regions across Uzbekistan to maximize outreach. This initiative plays a crucial role in raising awareness among seasonal workers, ensuring they are informed of their rights and the enforcement mechanisms available to them if their rights are violated. Providing clear and accessible information about legal protections and enforcement channels will be essential to empowering cotton workers to assert their rights, and increased awareness is critical to improving compliance with international labor standards, which is the route to creating a more sustainable and transparent cotton sector.
The Solidarity Center, in partnership with the Tashkent Mediation Center and the State Labor Inspectorate, successfully conducted a two-day training session October 2–3 in Tashkent aimed at enhancing the capacity of mediators to resolve individual labor disputes. The training, facilitated by a regional expert, introduced participants to mediation as an alternative mechanism for labor dispute resolution. The comprehensive curriculum, a blend of theoretical knowledge and practical exercises, equipped 10 mediators from the Tashkent Mediation Center and Labor Inspection staff with the skills to mediate and effectively resolve individual labor disputes. The head of the Labor Inspectorate emphasized the importance of continued collaboration and capacity building as critical to providing workers in the cotton sector with an effective remedy for labor rights violations.
These harvest-period activities supplement an ongoing rights awareness and education program the Solidarity Center and CIPE are implementing with workers and employers in the cotton sector. A core priority of that program in the coming year will be to ensure that all workers in the cotton sector have a written employment contract with clear, enforceable conditions of work. Employment contracts are vital to healthy labor relations that, unfortunately, are absent in many agricultural supply chains.
Recent reforms in Uzbekistan requiring labor contracts for all workers in cotton production have the potential to help the country distinguish itself as a high-road option for textile sourcing, if those reforms can be implemented and enforced. Developing workplace-level reporting and monitoring systems for workers to verify their rights are being respected, and to seek remedy if they are not, will be an important next step to positioning Uzbekistan as a leader in developing sustainable and just textile supply chains.
Funding is provided by the United States Department of Labor under cooperative agreement number IL-38908-22-75-K, through a sub-award from the Solidarity Center. 100% of the total costs of the project or program is financed with federal funds, for a total of $1,018,814. This material does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the United States Department of Labor, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the United States Government.
Organizing a union of more than 200 factory workers in an economic processing zone is a feat in itself, but doing so in just nine months amid management intimidation proves the power of solidarity.
On September 3, more than 60 percent of rank-and-file workers from Hyde Sails Cebu, Inc., a sail manufacturing company, voted union yes in their certification election, with high hopes of negotiating for better benefits and wage increases.
Lucil T. Loquinario, president of the Progressive Labor Union of Hyde Sails (PLUHS-PIGLAS), said earlier this year, “In a union, you will know the true stand and strength of a person,” adding that, “We want to dispel the myth that unions are bad or illegal.”
Fast forward to today, Loquinario noted constant education and pooling strength from each member as the main drivers of their victory. “It is better that all workers know their right to organize and know what we rightfully deserve as written in law. Since management does not let us know, it is only through this endeavor that I know the due process and defense we have as workers.”
The idea of forming a union came to Loquinario in December last year, when she was inspired by a friend who informed her of her rights as a worker. She started getting curious about the benefits her co-workers could be entitled to, along with the automatic 30-day suspension they are bound to when damages are found on manufactured sails.
Loquinario said their organizing started in January—with education seminars and friendly fireside chats with co-workers through May, when the majority of workers was already pro-union. However, word of a budding union reached management.
Loquinario detailed how management started calling them rebels, even installing a security camera in the workplace canteen a few days before the election date to allegedly intimidate workers who planned to vote union yes. She added that management appealed to the Labor department and accused the newly formed union of vote buying for passing out slices of bread to hungry voters after the election.
“It’s worse now,” she said. “Even with a five-minute lapse in break time, they sent a memo to my co-workers.”
Loquinario detailed how, after the election, management started increasing surveillance and demanding written explanations from workers who returned from break a few minutes late. “It is an unreasonable and unfair labor practice,” she said.
While these actions have caused delays in securing their collective bargaining agreement, Loquinario and the union remain hopeful, stressing the importance of having “lakas ng loob,” a Filipino adage for courage.
“We hope this has a good result where we can achieve our goals as workers in proper communication with management,” she said. “Because my co-workers are there, I have more courage to fight for what is right.”
Workers suffering from heat and other environmental stresses are best able to address the effects of climate change when they do so collectively, such as through their unions—especially when they can bargain collectively, according to Laurie Parsons of Royal Holloway, University of London.
“People are experts on their experience with heat,” said Parsons. “A key neglected area is to adapt to the challenge by acknowledging workers are their own experts.”
Studying garment workers, street vendors and informal economy workers, the report concluded that unionized workers are better able to mitigate heat stress at work than workers without a union.
Rising temperatures are significantly affecting workers. More than 70 percent of workers worldwide are at risk from severe heat. While outdoor workers—such as those growing food or building communities—are among those most affected, workers suffer from heat exposure in factories, warehouses and during daily commutes.
The study finds that 55.5 percent of those surveyed report experienced at least one environmental impact in their workplaces in the past 12 months, with air pollution the most common (30.5 percent), followed by extreme heat (25.5 percent) and flooding (9 percent).
The report shows that unionized workers experience half as much heat stress as nonunionized workers, and found that collective bargaining is the most effective form of collectively protecting workers from heat stress.
Workers whose unions bargained over heat experience 74 percent fewer minutes at dangerously high core body temperatures.
As a result, Parsons demonstrates that detailed attention to workers’ bodies to monitor heat “doesn’t cost a lot of money.”
But up to now, heat stress has not been addressed primarily because workers in Cambodia and elsewhere often find it difficult to form a union.
Overcoming Challenges to Joining a Union
“Workers face real obstruction,” said Somalay So, Solidarity Center senior program officer for equality, inclusion and diversity in Cambodia. So shared with panelists the ways in which employers deter workers from forming unions, the difficulties in obtaining union status to negotiate and, when workers win a union, the challenges they face when attempting to negotiate their first contract.
Yet, “despite all these challenges, workers try to achieve smaller agreements,” So said.
She described five innovative heat stress agreements that unions achieved in which a factory agreed to turn on its cooling systems and fans if the factory temperature rose above more than 35 degrees celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit), and assigned mechanics to investigate, suggest and implement other measures if this is ineffective. To ensure companies do not argue that it is not too hot for employees to work, unions have negotiated a clause in which the factory installs a thermometer.
Union leaders also convince employers to protect workers by pointing out that it benefits the bottom line: “It is good for their reputation,” So said, adding that heat not only causes heart and lung problems and lower incomes for workers, it slows workers and their productivity.
Climate Change and Work
Workers experiencing forced migration or who work at informal economy jobs such as food vendors and waste pickers are significantly affected by heat stress because they have little or no formal protection under the law, said Nash Tysmans, organizer for Asia at StreetNet International.
“Some 61 percent of the global workforce are informal workers, yet over half of workers are the most underrepresented” by collective bargaining agreements, she said on the panel. The report found that informal economy workers are in unions experience less exposure to extreme heat.
Women workers are especially vulnerable. In Cambodia, where 85 percent of garment workers are women, heat stress can lead to violence, So said. Heat stress leads to workplace violence and harassment, with employers often responding to falling productivity leading to violence and harassment rather than addressing heat stress issues.
“When their income drops because of climate change, it translates into domestic violence and trafficking,” she said. Workers experiencing violence may leave their area or country to make a living, and can become targets of unscrupulous labor brokers. “Violence and harassment happens more with heat stress. When there is heat stress, women and children are vulnerable even at home.”
Parsons, a professor at Royal Holloway, University of London, and expert on the social, political and economic aspects of climate change, previously researched a 2022 report for the Solidarity Center in Cambodia.
“When people can exercise their rights as workers without repression, not only can they improve their own working conditions, but they can raise standards across workplaces, industries, and across society more broadly,” said moderator Sonia Mistry, Solidarity Center climate and labor justice director.
Said So: “A strong union is when you are able to organize,” so “unions can be at the negotiating table to resolve issues of workers.
Delivery drivers at iFood in Brazil say they face exhausting workdays, low pay, lack of adequate company support and poor health conditions. In fact, wages that do not cover the cost of living -–or even do not meet the local minimum wage law—force drivers to work longer hours, leading to unsafe or hazardous working conditions and accidents, say experts and app-based drivers.
“There are dangerous conditions on the road with intense traffic that increases the risk of accidents,” says Beethoven Gomes de Oliveira, an app driver in João Pessoa. “This is also true for mototaxi workers. And the app companies don’t care about us workers, they treat us as if we are disposable.”
Delivery drivers say they suffer from exhausting workdays, low pay and poor health conditions. Credit: Paloma Luna
Injuries for the low-wage delivery drivers are on the rise. São Paulo Hospital reports that the percentage of trauma patients rose from 20 percent of motorcycle drivers in2016 to 80 percent in 2022. Nearly seven people die riding a motorbike on average every day in São Paulo, which health and safety experts attribute to the rapid expansion of food delivery apps.
Workers Fear Poor Treatment Could Expand
Motorcycle and bike drivers are among Brazil’s 1.6 million app drivers and delivery people, a figure that grew rapidly after COVID as workers seek jobs in the informal economy to sustain themselves and their families. And iFood drivers delivered more than 100 million orders in August.
iFood is owned by the Dutch investment company Prosus, a subsidiary of South African tech giant Naspers, and dominates the Brazilian food delivery market with an approximately 80 percent share. iFood anticipates total revenue from its financial arm to rise 52 percent next year-–an amount workers say could easily cover living wages and safer working conditions.
“Pay is very low, not enough to meet our basic needs. For example, maintenance costs are very high, alongside vehicle insurance and food,” says Gomes de Oliveira, leader of the João Pessoa Municipal Delivery Workers’ Commission. We are out on the street all day–12 to 15 hours–to make 100 reales (approximately $18), and even that is a struggle.”
Fabricio Bloisi, iFood CEO, was appointed Naspers joint CEO in July, a move that app-based workers saymay spread a business model that destroys their lives.
During a recent shareholders’ meeting, the Shareholder Association for Research and Education (SHARE) raised concerns about the treatment of delivery workers under Bloisi during his iFood tenure. The wider Naspers group owns the food delivery services Mr D Food, Superbalist, Takealot and Delivery Hero (25 percent).
iFood Stalls Negotiations, Basic Democratic Rights
App-based workers, the government and iFood worked together in 2023 on legislation to regulate the digital platform sector—but iFood did not negotiate in good faith with workers during the four-month process, stalling negotiations until recently when the company reached out to the Ministry of Labor.
Even as workers struggled for decent wages and safer working conditions, they say iFood has opposed their democratic right to form a union and stand together in their struggle. A FairWork report finds no evidence the platform ensures freedom of association and the expression of workers’ voice, and no evidence that it supports democratic governance.
Union supporters say they also are targeted by the company’s algorithm, with iFood blocking the accounts of leaders who question their organizing. Delivery drivers have regularly face inaccurate algorithims that cut their pay—or even deny them jobs.
“There are many algorithmic issues: accounts being blocked or deactivated, payments charged incorrectly or to the wrong person, deviations from the route without pay,” says Gomes de Oliveira.
A key part of drivers’ campaign for fairness is addressing arbitrary and unfair algorithms. Delivery workers suffer from bans from the app, without the right to defend themselves.
Company Should ‘Go Beyond Pursuit of Profits’
A 2022 report shows how far iFood was willing to control workers, including monitoring WhatsApp groups, creating fake profiles on social media and infiltrating with an agent. “The Hidden Propaganda Machine of iFood,” found the company hired an auditor specializing in human rights and spent over $1.1 million on research to determine strategies that would not increase the app’s fees during strikes.
As a result of the report and investigations conducted by the Federal Public Ministry and the Labor Public Ministry, iFood and its advertising agencies signed a Conduct Adjustment Term in July 2023. The company agreed it would not increase the fare for trips during a strike—an action delivery workers say often happened, resulting in “strikebreakers.” iFood also is obliged not to intervene directly or indirectly in workers’ organizations, and cannot influence the creation, operation and agendas of associations and unions.
Yet drivers say that iFood continues to violate international treaties, including the right for everyone, without discrimination, to equal pay for equal work and to form and join unions for the protection of their interests.
As the National App Delivery Workers’ Alliance said: “We believe that business leadership should go beyond the pursuit of profits. It should include a commitment to the well-being of workers, ensuring dignified working conditions and promoting practices that respect human rights.
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