Delegates at the 114th annual International Labour Conference in Geneva have adopted Convention No. 193, the first international treaty to establish binding labour standards for workers in the platform economy. The delegate vote was 406 to eight, with 36 abstentions.

The convention is a historic development. Gig platform companies like Uber and TaskRabbit have long undermined labour laws and denied their workers basic protections.

Convention 193 is the first binding international instrument to address this directly, providing minimum standards of protection for all platform workers, whether in the formal or informal economy.

The rights it enshrines will be familiar: freedom of association to form a union, occupational health and safety and access to social security. But there are also articles relevant to the platform economy calling for proper legal classification of workers, data privacy and unfair deactivations from a platform.

The catch is the enforcement gap. While International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions are legally binding on states that ratify them, they are not enforceable the way domestic laws or trade agreements are. Enforcement relies primarily on monitoring, reporting, investigation, publicity and political pressure rather than sanctions.

The Canadian dimension

The Canadian delegation unanimously voted for Convention 193 alongside most countries. The United States and New Zealand voted against, while countries including the United Kingdom and India abstained.

The........

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