ILO Adopts a Convention Governing Platform Workers

The International Labour Organization (ILO) voted to adopt a new Convention regarding “digital platform work.” The convention aims to close a perceived gap between the rights of workers on digital platforms and workers in more traditional employer-employee relationships. If ratified by individual ILO member countries, the Convention may very well expand existing rights for certain platform workers regarding pay, job protections, health & safety, social benefits, and data privacy. And while it is unlikely to be ratified in the United States, it is likely to be ratified in dozens of other countries, including in the European Union, which recently enacted a directive on platform work. The convention therefore may materially alter the international legal landscape regulating platform work. 

How Did the “Decent Work in the Platform Economy Convention” Come to Be?

The ILO is an international agency operating within the umbrella of the United Nations. Its chief mission is to develop and supervise global labor standards. It has a tripartite structure, meaning that its governance and operations include representatives from governments, workers, and employers. Among other items within its standard-setting functions, the ILO develops “conventions” that are designed to set global labor standards on a discrete issue that the ILO deems to be of global importance. These conventions, if ratified by an ILO member country, must be imported into that country’s applicable law and then become subject to the ILO’s supervisory system, which helps ensure that ratifying countries have adapted their law and practice consistent with the ratified convention. 

In 2023, the ILO’s Governing Body announced that it would consider a new convention on “platform” work and, in 2025, during the ILO’s annual International Labour Conference, tripartite delegations (governments, workers, and employers) met to begin the two-year negotiation process surrounding the Convention’s text, resulting in a vote this month. The final vote was 406 to 8, with 38 abstentions. Among the 8 countries that voted no was the United States.

What Does the Convention Cover?

The Convention sets a framework for “decent work” in the platform economy. In particular, it calls on ratifying countries to expand certain protections, as well as other public benefits and privacy rights:

• Classification. The Convention takes no explicit position on whether platform workers are employees or independent contractors. Instead, it directs governments to ensure that workers are properly classified under national law. 
• Fundamental rights. The Convention states that platform workers are entitled to the same fundamental rights as other workers. Under ILO standards, those rights include the freedom of association, protections against discrimination, and the prohibition of forced labor and child labor.
• Compensation. The Convention calls on governments to ensure that platform workers receive a minimum wage. It does not set that wage directly, but instead says that the wage should “in no case be lower than the applicable statutory or negotiated minimum wage.” It also directs countries to ensure that wages are paid on time and in full. 
• Job protection. The Convention next calls on governments to protect platform workers from discriminatory or “otherwise unlawful” terminations. This protection covers both employees and independent contractors. So whether the worker is fired from a job or merely has their platform access revoked, the worker should have the same legal protections.
• Health and safety. The Convention directs governments to extend occupational health and safety protections to platform work. It adds that countries should protect a platform worker’s right to refuse work when it is unsafe. 
• Public benefits. The Convention does not require countries to make platform workers eligible for public benefits, like social security or unemployment compensation. It does, however, say that platform workers should be eligible for benefits on the same terms as workers with the same classification. In other words, they should get the same benefits as other employees or independent contractors, whichever the case may be. 
• Automated management. The Convention includes minimum rights against automated management. This would include, for example, when a digital platform uses an automated decision-making tool to make a “significant decision” about a worker’s job or pay. When that happens, the platform must give the worker a written explanation, taking into account the status of the worker and be the product of “appropriate human involvement.” These provisions were very heavily contested for multiple reasons, including that these provisions arguably extended outside the ILO’s mandate to regulate labor standards, as opposed to technological standards. It is difficult to know at this stage how these provisions will be implemented into applicable domestic law and practice.
• Data protection. The Convention also gives workers rights over their own data. It requires digital platforms to take steps to protect workers’ personal information. It also gives workers the right to access their own information and correct that information, and be allowed to demand that their data be deleted, all consistent with national law. 
• Dispute resolution. Finally, the Convention states that workers should have access to “safe, fair, and effective dispute resolution mechanisms.” It does not mention any specific mechanism, but does require ratifying ILO member countries to ensure “appropriate and effective remedies.” 

What Happens Now?

In order for it to become binding law in an ILO member country, the Convention must be ratified according to that country’s ratification process. Ratification is unlikely in the United States, where the current administration firmly opposed the initial draft and voted against the final one. But ratification is more likely in other countries, including many European nations. 

Although the Convention’s impact remains an open question, we can surmise that, for employers in the United States, U.S. law is unlikely to change in the immediate future. U.S. law will continue to be set by federal, state, and local governments, which have taken divergent approaches to platform work. On the other hand, the global regulatory framework will continue to evolve for U.S. employers with international operations. The Convention was adopted by a wide vote and will likely shape the law in many member countries.