From June 1 to 12, the 114th International Labour Conference took place. After two years of debate, a Convention on Platform Work was adopted. While certain sectors have presented it as a historic step forward, the reality is that it is a framework full of limitations regarding conditions in the sector because it fails to recognize the employment relationship.

Platform work is one of the defining phenomena of the twenty-first century. The fact that it has been taken up by the world’s leading international body for regulating the world of work is undoubtedly significant and reflects an urgent reality.

The reality of this new and growing sector of the working class, whose most «visible» expression is app-based delivery workers and drivers, but which in fact includes many other, and increasingly numerous, sectors of workers, is a problem that requires a response. The very title of the debate, «Decent Work in the Platform Economy,» already makes clear that this is a central issue that must be addressed.

In this context, this week marked the drafting and overwhelming approval of a Convention establishing minimum standards for regulating platform work, with 406 votes in favor, only 8 against, and 36 abstentions, following a two-year discussion held during the 113th and 114th sessions of the International Labour Conference, the ILO’s annual meeting.

What Is the ILO and How Does It Work? What Is a Convention?

The ILO (International Labour Organization) is an international body within the UN system where representatives from all member states come together. It is a multilateral and tripartite institution in which delegates representing the «three sectors» of governments, employers, and workers all have both voice and vote, establishing minimum standards and benchmarks across different areas of the world of work.

Because of its composition, this institution reflects workers, governments, and employers in a false position of equality, far from being a genuine expression of workers’ demands emerging from below. Instead, it seeks to establish supposedly «consensual» rules, as was reflected in this case, where a kind of middle-ground solution regarding conditions in the sector was put forward.

It’s symptomatic, however, that the regulation of platform work was one of the central issues discussed during the last two meetings of this institution. Clearly, this is an issue that is here to stay, and today it represents the spearhead of capitalists’ efforts to increase the exploitation of workers. It is clear that this is a pressing and current issue that demanded a response, which is why the debate itself was framed under the title Decent Work in the Platform Economy.

The ILO follows a series of bureaucratic procedures to establish standards covering different sectors of work. Under its rules, discussions on new regulations take place over two years: the first year determines whether a Convention or a Recommendation will be drafted (or both, as in this case), and the second year is for the final drafting and approval of those instruments.

A Convention is the ILO’s strongest normative instrument. Once ratified by a member state, it creates binding legal obligations and requires national legislation to be adapted to its provisions. A Recommendation (which in this case was not debated «due to lack of time» and therefore remains pending) is not binding and consists of standards intended to complement Conventions.

A Historic Agreement?

Faced with this situation, on Friday, June 12, the final text of the Convention on platform work was put to a vote after its drafting had been completed the previous night. Following the news, various sectors declared that this was a «historic» standard for protecting platform workers.

Let’s break this down. On the one hand, the very fact that a Convention was reached is important. It also establishes a series of minimum standards aimed at providing some response to the serious problems faced by gig workers.

The most important positive aspect is all platform workers, regardless of their legal employment status, enjoy the protection of the «fundamental principles and rights at work,» including freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining.

It also establishes (in general terms, with each country determining how these measures will be implemented in practice) the need to take measures to prevent occupational accidents, occupational diseases, and health risks, as well as to protect workers from violence and harassment, including when perpetrated by third parties such as clients or customers.

It establishes that payment must be made in full and on time, and that workers must receive clear and precise information regarding remuneration and the terms and conditions under which they’re hired. In this regard, another important point, though it comes with a significant catch, is that only those who are effectively recognized as workers are guaranteed that their pay (excluding tips) must be not less to the national minimum wage and that they must be compensated for the expenses or costs incurred in carrying out their work

The Convention also requires companies to provide information on the use of automated systems, such as algorithms, for evaluating workers or making decisions related to their work, as well as allowing those decisions to be reviewed when appropriate, ensuring that platforms provide «adequate human intervention.»

Finally, it establishes certain protective measures, such as safeguarding workers’ personal data and prohibiting suspensions, deactivations, or dismissals when they are discriminatory in nature, along with certain guarantees related to these decisions.

It also proposes (again in somewhat general terms) that measures be taken to prevent abuses against migrants and refugees in the context of their recruitment and work and to provide them with «adequate protection.»

A Convention That Leaves Labor Precarization Intact

However, while many of these elements are important, assessing the Convention requires looking at the broader picture, and this is where the limitations of this measure become especially clear.

The first and most significant limitation is precisely that the Convention deliberately avoids taking a position on the central issue at stake: the employment status of platform workers. Even a quick reading of the document makes clear that this issue has been the heart of the conflict between workers and platform companies. The reality is that there is no equality between workers and employers, there is no identity of interests, and there is no «simple contractual relationship.»

Platforms organize the work, dictate the conditions under which tasks are performed, determine how much workers are paid, and reap immense profits from a business model centered on the denial of rights and deep labor precarization. Faced with this reality, the key element of any regulation should be to establish this fundamental principle: platform workers are workers.

The enormous contradiction, then, is that various sectors, including workers’ organizations, have described as «historic» a Convention that explicitly sets aside this fundamental issue. Even other regulations, such as the European Union Directive adopted two years ago, despite its limitations, put forward a different approach: reversing the burden of proof. In other words, platform workers are classified as workers a priori, and it is the companies that must demonstrate conclusively that those performing work through their platforms are in fact engaged in genuinely independent forms of work.

It is in this context that all the good intentions, and even several genuinely progressive measures such as those mentioned above, run up against their limits. The Convention emphasizes a number of important issues, but it does so in broad terms while granting each state enormous discretion in how to implement them.

As a result, the sector’s model of labor precarization remains intact, and companies and governments retain broad room to maneuver in denying rights by classifying workers as «self-employed.» Likewise, in situations where greater pressure can be exerted, nothing prevents another trap from emerging: the creation of a «special status» under which platform workers become second-class workers, granted partial protections while being denied the full range of labor rights.

In that sense, there are major issues absent from this Convention. To mention just one that is fundamental for app-based delivery workers and drivers, nothing is said about waiting time, that is, the period during which a worker remains available through the app waiting for a job order to arrive. Should that time is paid or not? The Convention says nothing about it. The same applies to other issues such as the right to paid vacation, limits on working hours, (since it is extremely common in app-based work for legal weekly hour limits to be exceeded by a wide margin), insurance covering work equipment, and many other matters.

As a small illustration of what this Convention actually represents, we would like to point to a few details from the voting results, which we do not consider accidental in the slightest. Among the 406 votes in favor, given the overwhelming majority (more than 90%), most employer representatives voted for the Convention. This broad support from employers shows that the Convention does not challenge the core of the platforms’ business model, especially the absence of any definition of the employment relationship.

Moreover, even looking only at the Argentine case reveals other telling elements. The official representatives of Milei’s government, which only three months ago approved an anti-worker labor reform that explicitly excludes platform workers from labor law and denies them rights, merely abstained. At the same time, the employer delegate (representing business sectors that supported Argentina’s anti-worker labor reform), voted in favor of the Convention.^[1]

Continuing with the limitations revealed by this vote, there are other highly significant points worth mentioning. A close reading of the adopted text reveals not only some serious problems that are explicitly stated, but also a number of traps that become apparent through deeper analysis.

A key issue appears in the very first article of the Convention: subcontracting in platform work is permitted. This mechanism is particularly serious because it creates a concrete avenue and a practical tool for companies to deny workers their rights. As if that were not enough, Article 24 stipulates that when «intermediaries» are involved (that is, in cases of subcontracting), platforms do not bear joint liability. Instead, states are left to determine and assign the «respective responsibilities,» effectively giving large platforms free rein to commit abuses.

This is exactly what is happening in Germany today. Delivery workers won major advances in labor rights, but they are now facing an attack by the platforms and are fighting back against it. The platforms’ strategy is to subcontract through a myriad of micro-companies, each employing only a few dozen workers. This leads to extremely precarious working conditions and the fragmentation of workers’ organization through a mechanism that is entirely legal in that country.

The Convention also contains other deeply problematic provisions. First of all, from the very beginning it makes a contradictory move: it uses the term «digital platform worker» to cover everyone who performs work for these companies, but immediately strips the term of any substantive meaning by explicitly stating that this designation applies «regardless of their employment status.» In other words, it places registered workers and those classified as «self-employed» in the same category.

It also allows states to exclude «limited categories» of platform workers from the scope of the Convention without establishing any criteria for doing so. Likewise, Article 4, which deals with occupational safety and health, establishes a false situation of equality between the responsibilities to be assumed by the state, platform companies, and workers by describing them as «complementary.» On the contrary, there is an undeniable imbalance of power, and the real burden of responsibility for health and safety at work should fall on companies and governments.

With regard to the «formalization of work,» the Convention merely calls for the registration of those classified as «independent,» allowing for a form of labor classification that is fundamentally false. On the basis of that same premise, it permits another serious inequality: the Convention guarantees access to social security, pay no lower than the minimum wage, and compensation for the expenses or costs associated with performing the work only to workers who are legally recognized as such. For those legally classified as «self-employed,» it uses exclusionary language or, at best, states that they should be guaranteed conditions «no less favorable» than those applicable to other workers with the same employment status, that is, other «self-employed» workers.

The Struggle of Platform Workers for Full Rights

Ultimately, a thorough analysis of this Convention clearly shows, as we have argued, that it is a measure that falls halfway short. It acknowledges the problem of securing «decent work» (to use the ILO’s own words) in the platform economy, and it establishes certain minimum standards that can serve as starting points. But it leaves unresolved the fundamental issue of recognizing the employment relationship, allowing the model of labor precarization and denial of rights to continue.

This Convention demonstrates once again that grassroots workers’ organization is the only way to win full rights. No solution will come from above as a gift from parliamentarians or international bodies (especially «tripartite» institutions that seek a supposed consensus between workers and employers) without workers’ mobilization and struggle to defeat the companies seeking to impose their model of precarization.

As stated by the International Gig Workers Congress in its updated Declaration of Principles^[2], the key struggle is for the recognition of the employment relationship with full rights. This Convention should be a point of departure in the struggle to enforce its positive provisions. But it will have to be far surpassed through the struggle of platform workers around the world to defeat the precarization model of twenty-first century capitalism and win full rights.

^[1] https://www.ilo.org/resource/conference-paper/ilc/ilc114/results-vote-adoption-decent-work-platform-economy-convention-2026

^[2] https://izquierdaweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Declaration-of-Principles-2nd-International-Congress.docx.pdf