The Fairwork Project at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford is seeking a research partner to conduct the Fairwork assessment of digital labour platforms in India and continue our established research in this country. Partners need to be based in the country of study. Towards building a sustainable and fair future of work 2022-2023!
This document is intended to inform potential interested parties about what to expect if they take on the role of being a Fairwork research partner in India. It details key arrangements we would put in place to facilitate the partnership, the main steps involved in Fairwork research and conducting an annual Fairwork scoring round, what’s involved in formalising a partnership, and the information we seek from potential partners to help us in our partner selection process. This is a call for proposals for funded partnerships with Fairwork, which works to ensure decent work standards for workers on digital platforms. Proposals must be submitted by 13 December 2022 via email to michelle.gardner@oii.ox.ac.uk.
‘Fair Work in the Platform Economy: A Global South Perspective’ is an action research project funded by GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit). The project is co-ordinated Professor Mark Graham at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, with key coordinating partners including Professor Martin Krzywdzinski at the WZB: Berlin Social Science Center and Professor Richard Heeks at the Centre for Development Informatics, University of Manchester.
Fairwork’s main focus is rating digital labour platforms – mainly but not exclusively in the ride-hailing, delivery and domestic work sectors – according to five decent work principles: fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation. Evidence is gathered from the platforms themselves and from worker interviews, with each platform being awarded a score between 0 and 10 (see examples here).
Fairwork’s action research approach intends not just to understand the platform economy across the world, but to change it. By bringing workers, platforms, scholars, labour researchers and policymakers to the table, we work to collaboratively develop and embed principles of fair work into the script of the platform economy. Fundamental to the project is a commitment to being participatory in our research and non-hierarchical within our communities. Our aim is to understand, and counter, some of the forces that disempower platform workers across the world. We are a transnational network of social justice-minded scholars in pursuit of this planetary goal.
Launched in 2018, the project has so-far produced ratings for more than 200 digital labour platforms (both geographically tethered, and cloudwork), and currently operates in 38 countries on five continents.
Fairwork, at its essence, is a way of imagining a different, and fairer, platform economy than the one we have today. By evaluating platforms against measures of fairness, we hope to not just show what the platform economy is, but also what it can be.
We expect research partners to conduct the following as part of the Fairwork Activities in a scoring round:
1. Fieldwork Phase I
2. Fieldwork Phase II
3. Write up and Dissemination of Report
4. Reaching out to a minimum of 100 organisations for the Fairwork Pledge
5. Leadership on one finished academic paper
Please note that all activities are undertaken with members of the Fairwork project team. All regional teams have regular update meetings with the Fairwork Project lead.
Mandatory criteria:
Scoring criteria:
Please provide the following information in your application pack:
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