Global Gig Work Regulations in the Making: Why New ILO Rules Matter

Global gig work regulations are moving from national experiments to international coordination, and that’s why potential new ILO rules matter. The gig economy has grown faster than labour law updates, leaving major gaps around employment status, minimum protections, algorithmic management, and access to social security. The new global norms, either binding convention or more relaxed handbook, can shape the formulation of laws in countries, the interpretation of worker rights by courts, and the formulation of policies by platforms. To employees, it might imply some more certainty; to platforms, more foreseeable adherence. In the case of governments, it will be an opportunity to establish reasonable regulation without suffocating innovation.

Why the ILO is a big deal

The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a UN body that establishes the international labour standards in conventions and recommendations, which governments, employers and workers embrace. These standards tend to influence future domestic labour reforms particularly when nations ratify conventions or adopt recommendations as templates of policy.

In the case of gig work, the action of the ILO is used to signify that platform labour is no longer considered a marginal case, but it is seen as a fundamental shift in the labour-market, where similar principles need to be applied across multiple borders.

Read more: New Rules Expand Gig Insurance, Gratuity, and Night Shifts for Women

The core issues new rules could address

In case the ILO promotes the rules on platform work, the most probable areas of focus would be:

• Worker classification: Clear tests for when gig workers should be treated as employees versus genuinely independent contractors.
• Minimal protections: Minimum wage, working time protection, and prohibition of unfair dismissal or deactivation.
• Social protection: Access to health coverage, injury protection, and pension contributions, including portability across jobs.
• Algorithmic management: Transparency on ratings, pay-setting, and automated decisions, plus routes to appeal.
• Collective voice: The workers who are thought to be self-employed have the rights to organise and bargain.

These pillars are indicative of practical areas of friction that regulators continue to be faced with on a global scale: enforcement, fairness and accountability.

What it means for platforms and workers

For platforms, emerging global gig work regulations can reduce “rule-by-country” chaos by creating shared definitions and minimum expectations. To employees, international standards can reinforce claims of benefits of equitable remuneration, procedural fairness when suffering a deactivation, and safer workplaces, particularly in the case where national regulations are ambiguous or lack a rapid update.

The actual effect will be dependent on how the governments will adopt and implement the standards and how the regulations will be comprehensive to address the algorithm-based work.

What to watch next

The most important indicators will consist of the direction in which the ILO will go (stronger, ratifiable, or more flexible), and the manner in which it will establish a platform control and economic dependence. Another thing to observe is the way proposals treat cross-border platforms and data transparency- two aspects where it can be a matter of life and death of whether the rules can be enforced.

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