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Fairwork Observatory
The Fairwork Observatory is a way for the Fairwork team to study platforms outside of our standard national league tables.
The Observatory is led by Dr Partrick Feuerstein, at the Berlin Social Science Research Center (WZB), and works in collaboration with Fairwork teams around the world.
In its first year of operation the Observatory has started to work on four campaigns:
Rating domestic work platforms in the MENA region
The first campaign addresses working conditions of domestic workers in the MENA region. Carried out by our team in Egypt, this campaign tries to analyse whether domestic work platforms can serve as an alternative to the often-deplorable conditions of work in this sector.
Rating ride-hailing platforms in Nigeria
The second campaign focusses on the ride-hailing sector in Nigeria. Targeting one of the most vibrant markets in Africa, the campaign will highlight working conditions on some of the most relevant ride-hailing platforms in order to also support local unions in organizing platform workers in Lagos.
Rating translation and transcription platforms
The third Observatory campaign extends our cloudwork ratings by generating additional scores for translation and transcription platforms, a market segment that is most relevant for different groups of customers in the Global North and that provides important income opportunities for skilled workers in the Global South. By highlighting differences between platforms offering these kinds of services we aim to make our scores even more relevant for, among others, academic institutions and private companies. By providing crucial information to inform their business activities, we also hope to convince them to support fair working conditions by signing the Fairwork Pledge.
The Glovo pledge
Lastly, the Observatory is engaged in a campaign that intends to use our principles to advise one of the biggest global delivery platforms, “Glovo”, on how to improve working conditions for their platform’s riders. This campaign includes the creation of additional scorecards for Glovo in countries not covered by our network so far. Beyond the primary purpose of positively influencing working conditions on a global platform, the campaign will thus also generate interesting cross-regional comparative perspectives on the impact of different institutional and regulatory frameworks on working conditions in the platform economy.