Fairwork vis-à-vis ILO Decent Work Standards

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By Richard Heeks, Mark Graham, Paul Mungai, Jean-Paul Van Belle and Jamie Woodcock

How does the Fairwork framework of five decent work standards in the gig economy – fair pay, conditions, management, contracts, representation – compare to more conventional frameworks?

As explained in a recently-published paper, Fairwork is a simplified, revised and measurable version of the 11 elements of the International Labour Organization’s decent work agenda.

Comparing the two, as shown in the table below, Fairwork is not as comprehensive. Some ILO elements not covered were seen as unrelated to Fairwork’s purpose. For example, the contextual elements lie outside the control of platforms, and no evidence was found of child or forced labour. Quantum of employment measures are not directly relevant to Fairwork’s aims though it would be informative to know if platforms are creating new work as opposed to just substituting for existing work.

ILO Decent Work Elements	Focus	Coverage by Fairwork Framework
Employment opportunities	Quantum of available employment	Not covered by the Fairwork principles
Adequate earnings and productive work	Pay but incorporating a consideration of hours worked in order to generate adequate earnings	Covered by Fair Pay
Decent working time	Number of hours worked	Not separately measured but incorporated into Fair Pay via hourly pay measure, and considered as part of Fair Conditions if overlong hours endanger the worker
Combining work, family and personal life	Paid leave	Covered in Fair Conditions
Combining work, family and personal life	Flexibility of work	Not covered by the Fairwork principles
Work that should be abolished	Child and forced labour	Not covered by the Fairwork principles
Stability and security of work	Probability of job loss and overall quantum of precarious employment in an economy	Not directly covered by the Fairwork principles but job security related to employment status covered under Fair Contracts and job loss process covered in Fair Management
Equal opportunity and treatment in employment	Gender pay and employment gaps	Partly covered in Fair Management
Equal opportunity and treatment in employment	Equality of treatment across multiple dimensions of disadvantage	Covered in Fair Management
Safe work environment	Occupational safety and health	Covered by Fair Conditions
Social security	Social protection against contingencies including ill-health, old age, unemployment, and disability	Covered by Fair Conditions
Social dialogue, employers’ and workers’ representation	Freedom of association and collective bargaining	Covered by Fair Representation
Economic and social context for decent work	Broader national context of wealth, education, poverty, inequality, etc	Not covered by the Fairwork principles

While outside the scope of Fairwork’s principles, work security and flexibility were investigated via open questions in worker interviews. Workers did raise the issues of flexibility and autonomy, as positive attributes of their gig economy work. These supposed benefits are arguably more perceptual than real. Hours of work are often determined by client demand and shaped by incentive payments offered by the platform to work at certain times or for certain shift lengths. Work is recorded and managed via the app and platform to a significant extent.

In sum, the Fairwork framework covers the decent work-related issues identified in the research literature on platforms, and the majority of decent work elements within the ILO framework. Its ratings could nonetheless be contextualised in a number of ways by adding in broader findings about the national socio-economic context, about any creation of work and autonomy by the gig economy, about dimensions of inequality within and between gig sectors, and about longer-term job (in)security and precarity.

You can find more detail about this and other foundations for the Fairwork project in the open-access paper, “Systematic Evaluation of Gig Work Against Decent Work Standards: The Development and Application of the Fairwork Framework”; published in the journal, The Information Society.