CfDS Collaborates with Fairwork to Discuss the Welfare of Gig Workers

Yogyakarta, September 23rd 2022Center for Digital Society (CfDS) of FISIPOL UGM collaborated with Fairwork Oxford Internet Institute (OII) Indonesia to discuss and launch the research results of Rating Fairwork Indonesia 2022 on Friday (23/9). The event which was held in Digital Expert Talks #17 was attended by three speakers; Treviliana Eka Putri, Fairwork Indonesia Researcher; Yuli Adiratna, Director of Labor Norms Development, Directorate General of Binwasnaker and K3 of the Indonesian Ministry of Manpower; Muhammad Fadh representing Gunawan Hutagalung, Plt. Director of Post, Directorate General of PPI, Kominfo; and moderated by Amelinda Pandu, a researcher from CfDS.

The Rating Fairwork Indonesia 2022 study discusses the condition of the gig economy and gig workers in Indonesia over the past year. The study was conducted on 11 economic platforms in Indonesia, namely Grab, Gojek, Gobox, Maxim, Borzo, Deliveree, InDriver, Lalamove, Paxel, Shopeefood, and TravelokaEats.

The discussion begins with the presentation of the principles of decent work according to Fairwork by Trevi. These include; wages, working conditions, employment relations (contracts), management, and proper representation. However, not all of these principles can be found on the 11 platforms studied. “No effort is big enough to provide decent work,” said Trevi.

Seeing these conditions, Fairwork recommends the need for encouragement for the government to create regulations that regulate decent work standards and tariffs for logistics services. Meanwhile, for platforms, Fairwork also recommends the need for a transparent process in policy formulation. In addition, the platform also needs to ensure the right of workers to collectively voice their concerns.

The welfare of gig workers has also received attention from the Ministry of Manpower (Kemnaker), especially online transportation workers, regarding labor protection. According to Yuli, the partnership relationship between the platform and workers is an important thing to study. “Who controls and who is controlled?”, the question became an important basis for assessing the relationship between the platform and workers, Yuli also agreed with the recommendations put forward by Fairwork regarding the rules for regulating the platform.

Responding to the importance of regulations governing platforms, especially in regulating tariffs, Fadh conveyed several challenges in preparing these regulations. It should be noted that the Ministry of Communication and Information has the authority to set the tariff formula for commercial postal services. The commercial postal services in question include courier services, logistics, and online transportation. “In preparing tariffs, they must be guided by what the government has set.”

Fadh said that the trend of free shipping which imposes costs on postal operators is one of the challenges faced. In addition, the tariffs set by the application-based postal service are also deemed not in accordance with economic considerations by the working partners. Subsidiaries in the postal and courier sector owned by Marketplace which are competitors for courier and postal services also pose a challenge to creating an industrial climate that does not eat each other.

Closing the discussion, Treviliana hopes that with the research that has been carried out in these two periods, various relevant stakeholders can develop policies that support the feasibility of gig workers in Indonesia by considering economic sustainability. “The issue of protecting gig economy workers is a shared issue. So it takes collective work from consumers, platform owners, workers, and also the government. For the common good and prosperity.”