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Impact

Fairwork conducts robust, evidence-based research aimed at improving conditions in the digital economy for some of the most vulnerable workers globally. By employing a multifaceted and collaborative approach with diverse stakeholders, Fairwork has achieved measurable progress in enhancing labour conditions for precarious workers navigating the challenges posed by emerging workplace technologies.

Our theory of change focuses on four pathways: companies, policymakers,  consumers and workers. On this page, you will find an overview of the project’s impacts across each of these four pathways.

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Overview

 

Dig Deeper:

Pathway 1: Companies

Companies play a crucial role in shaping the quality of the jobs they facilitate. Through its research and ratings system, Fairwork actively collaborates with companies to encourage and reward pro-worker changes in their policies and practices. With the Fairwork Principles as a guide, companies can improve conditions for workers and thus build safer and fairer businesses.

As a result of engaging with Fairwork, 66 unique companies have agreed to make a total of 321 pro-worker changes to their policies and practices. These changes have been secured across all five Fairwork Principles. They include:

  • 44 changes on Fair Pay, for example, implementing a policy to pay workers a minimum wage or a living wage.
  • 64 changes on Fair Conditions, for example, implementing a GDPR-compliant data management policy or introducing sickness insurance.
  • 78 changes on Fair Contracts, for example, translating their contracts or terms and conditions to local languages and changing contracts to be subject to local legislation.
  • 107 changes on Fair Management, for example, improving their appeal process or implementing anti-discrimination policies.
  • 28 changes on Fair Representation, for example, agreeing to the election of a workers’ representative or engaging with local workers’ associations.

Since 2023, Fairwork has also been deepening its engagement with companies through events for platform managers in Africa, Europe, Latin America, and Asia as well as for cloudwork (online remote work). These events have so far involved 32 platform managers across 31 platforms and 21 countries. In 2024, Fairwork also established a joint working group with platform companies to improve the conditions of online work. The “Fairwork Cloudwork Initiative” brings managers from each of the participating platform companies to meet regularly with members of the Fairwork research team, to discuss best practices for implementing pro-worker changes and commitments into their policies and practices. All of these efforts have enabled Fairwork to engage companies more closely with research findings, while also creating spaces for dialogue about how those findings could be acted upon in practice. Based on feedback from participants, Fairwork researchers created a best practices document, which provides real-world examples of how companies have met the Fairwork principles.

IMPACT STORY: Creative Words

In 2023, the translation services platform Creative Words made an impressive 14 changes to increase transparency of management decisions, improve access to appeals processes, remove non-compete clauses, and support worker representation because of Fairwork. Such changes represent concrete improvements in the lives of workers, allowing them to take part in fair and dignified work.

After making these changes, Creative Words met all the thresholds of the Fairwork Cloudwork Principles, becoming the first-ever platform to achieve a 10/10 Fairwork score. This rating, and Creative Word’s ongoing collaboration with Fairwork, proves definitively that the Fairwork Principles are not just achievable, but desirable.

 

Pathway 2: Policymakers and Government

Engaging with policymakers is a key pillar of Fairwork’s approach to driving positive change for workers in the digital economy. Fairwork research has played a role in shaping policies that impact millions of workers, though the complexities of politics can make it difficult to trace a direct line between our work and specific policy developments. We do, however, have clear evidence that Fairwork research is embedded in various policy debates in jurisdictions around the world.

 

IMPACT STORY: UK Digital Development Strategy, 2024-2030

The UK’s Digital Development Strategy 2024-2030 by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), notes that, in its agenda on the digital transformation of labour markets, it will seek to complement Fairwork’s existing work

 

2023 US Congressional Discussions

A 2023 US Senator Ed Markey drew on the Fairwork AI principles for a letter sent by him and colleagues (Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Jamaal Bowman, Katie Porter, Mark Pocan, Ron Wyden and Pramilia Jayapal) to artificial intelligence companies on data worker labour conditions. The Fairwork Cloudwork Scorings 2023 report was also subsequently consulted by Senator Markey’s office to provide comment on the responses that companies submitted.

 

2023 ASEAN Employment Outlook

The Fairwork Philippines, Indonesia, and Singapore teams were involved in consultations on the “2023 ASEAN Employment Outlook: The Quest for Decent Work in Platform Economy: Issues, Opportunities and Ways Forward.” The report cites Fairwork as a “benchmark that stakeholders can use to assess platform labour practices” that “international, regional, and local communities can adopt.”

 

Other recent policy engagements by country teams include:

Africa and the Middle East 

🇪🇬 Egypt

  • Presented at the 2022 National Forum on the Future of Work: Fairwork researchers spoke about work arrangements in the gig economy on a panel involving high-level stakeholders, including the MEP/Treasurer of the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce.  
  • Consulted on the 2022 “Your Road is Safe” Initiative: Fairwork Egypt participated in discussions with Egypt’s Ministry of Social Solidarity over their “Your Road is Safe’’ initiative to improve the working conditions of couriers, including via the provision of free safety training, equipment, and rest stops and mechanisms for collective representation.  

🇰🇪 Kenya

  • Supported the Transport Workers Union (TAWU) and the Automobile Association of Kenya in a 2023 submission to the Ministry of Transport: The memorandum, regarding the pricing mechanism for ride-hailing platforms, drew on Fairwork’s evidence, emphasising that workers need to be compensated for all their labour time, factoring in both fixed and operational costs. 

🇺🇬 Uganda: 

  • Invited by the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development to participate in a 2023 workshop: The team took part in the event titled “Understanding and improving women’s work on digital platforms in Uganda”. 
  • Met Members of Parliament in late 2024 to highlight gaps in protections for platform work in Ugandan labour laws: There is currently an employment bill on the floor of Parliament in Uganda and the Fairwork teams hopes to work with the MPs to ensure it includes an amendment on digital platform work.   

Asia

ASEAN

  • Consulted on the 2023 ASEAN Employment Outlook: The Fairwork Philippines, Indonesia, and Singapore teams provided input on the report, which cited Fairwork as a “benchmark that stakeholders can use to assess platform labour practices” and that “international, regional, and local communities can adopt.”  

🇧🇩 Bangladesh

  • Moderated a 2024 Ministry of Labour and Employment workshop on “Realizing Decent Work in the Platform Economy”: This first-of-its-kind event, facilitated by the ILO, helped government officials deepen their understanding of the current labour conditions in platform work, the variety of modalities it offers and the stance of both workers and the platforms on regulation. The event also fostered new connections between workers, platforms and the government. 

🇮🇳 India

  • Testified at the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and IT in August 2022: Balaji Parthasarathy and Janaki Srinivasan provided evidence on the conditions of platform workers.  
  • Engaged in consultations on state-level platform regulation in 2023 and 2024: In 2023, the team engaged closely on the Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023, the first legislation produced in India to provide gig workers with a social safety net. Building on this experience, the team participated in consultations on similar legislation in the state of Karnataka and joined dialogues with the Tamil Nadu Planning Commission (TNPC) to develop a policy framework for gig workers in that state. 

🇮🇩 Indonesia

  • Engaged government representatives in Fairwork events in 2022 and 2023: Over the years, government representatives from Indonesia’s Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Transportation, Ministry of Information and Communication, Directorate General of Labor Inspection Development and Ministry of Manpower participated in Fairwork events including report launches and important ongoing discussions with worker associations and policy institutes. 

🇵🇰 Pakistan

  • Drafted legislation for platform workers in August 2022: Fairwork Pakistan’s partner, the Centre for Labour Research, submitted draft legislation along with the Fairwork Pakistan report to the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development.
  • Presented the draft legislation at the Pakistan Institute of Parliamentary Services (PIPS): The event brought together a diverse group of stakeholders, including two senators, the Director General of PIPS, government officials, labour rights advocates, International Labour Organisation (ILO) representatives, worker representatives, and academic experts to discuss current issues within the platform economy in Pakistan. 

🇵🇭 Philippines

  • Influenced 2022 Senate Bill No. 1373: The Philippines Senate referenced the 2022 Fairwork Philippines report and consulted the Fairwork team on the bill, which pertains to work “mediated, organized, or allocated through online platforms for the protection of Philippine workers in the gig economy.” 

Europe

🇦🇹 Austria

  • Presented to the Municipal Department of Economic Affairs, Labour and Statistics in 2021: Fairwork researchers shared insights on topics like the Vienna Taxi Fares. 
  • Provided input on local debates about the EU Platform Directive in late 2021.

🇪🇺 EU

  • Spoke at the European Parliament in 2023: Jonas Valente (cloudwork project lead) Presented the Fairwork Cloudwork findings at the “Conference Against Uberisation” and discussed the challenges for cloudwork regulation with European MPs and other stakeholders. 
  • Participated in the 2021/2022 preparations of the Platform Work Directive: Valeria Pulignano (Fairwork Belgium principal investigator) was part of the Task Force led by Elisabetta Gualmini. 

🇩🇪 Germany

  • Consulted on a 2023  online training program for the gig economy initiative by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ): Funda Ustek Spilda (Senior Researcher with Fairwork) and Mark Graham (Fairwork Director) were part of the Advisory Board that set up the program providing “a range of e-learning courses designed to inform, orient and build competencies of both policy stakeholders and platform-based gig workers”. 
  • Participated in the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs‘ first stakeholder dialogue in late 2024: The event was about the transposition of the Platform Work Directive.
  • Engaged with the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in late 2024: The team presented the Fairwork project at the Ministry, highlighting, in particular, the challenges being faced by platform workers in Germany. Members of the Ministry also participated in the Fairwork Germany Stakeholder workshop in December 2024.
  • Met with members of the German and Berlin Parliament in 2024: The team brought the important challenges being faced by platform workers in Germany to their attention. 

🇷🇸 Serbia

  • Engaged with Serbia’s Ministry of Labour in 2022: During the meeting, researchers shed light on the harms and risks experienced by platform workers under the current regulatory regime. Ministry of Labour representatives later participated in a meeting hosted by Fairwork Serbia, alongside union representatives, worker activists and platform managers.  
  • Met with the Traffic Safety Agency in 2023: The discussion was about traffic safety and the researchers and policymakers together explored strategies to enhance the safety of platform workers who use the streets, in particular the need for new traffic regulations.

🇪🇸 Spain 

  • Collaborated with Spanish occupational health institutions in 2024: Fairwork Spain researchers presented their research to the Spanish National Institute of Security & Occupational Health and its regional branches. 

UK

🇬🇧 UK

  • Was cited in the FCDO’s Digital Development Strategy 2024-2030: The strategy notes that, in its agenda on the digital transformation of labour markets, the government will seek to complement Fairwork’s existing work. 
  • Provided crucial input to the “Good Work” section of the 2024 London Growth Plan: Fairwork Director Mark Graham was consulted on the plan while it was under development by the Greater London Authority. 
  • Submitted evidence to Parliament’s Business and Trade Committee in late 2025 regarding the new UK Employment Rights Bill: The team pointed out gaps in the draft legislation – which doesn’t adequately account for the unique challenges of workers in the digital economy – and provided seven actionable policy recommendations to ensure fairness in the economy under the new regulation.
  • Met with Justin Madders MP in December 2022: Madders, the Shadow Minister for both Employment Rights and Protection, and the Future of Work, committed to sharing Fairwork scores with all the relevant UK platforms and demanding positive changes to achieve greater levels of fairness in the platform economy. He also committed to staying up to date with the unique Fairwork dataset and using it to shape a future legislative agenda. 
  • Provided oral evidence to the UK Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee inquiry on “connected tech: smart or sinister?” in 2022 

The Americas

🇧🇷 Brazil

  • Supported the creation of the Platform Work Researchers Forum in 2024: This initiative involved gathering scholars researching the topic to engage with policymakers.  
  • Contributed to the government’s tripartite working group in 2024:  Fairwork researchers engaged policymakers, unions and other researchers in discussions about the regulation for platform work and participated in public statements by the academic community highlighting the need to ensure workers’ rights are protected by forthcoming regulation. 
  • Met with the Brazilian Minister of Labour on AI and Labour in 2024: Following the launch of a working group by the Ministry, Rafael Grohmann (principal investigator for Fairwork Brazil) presented research related to AI policies and data workers. 
  • Co-led a 2024 public letter related to AI Bill (No 2.338/2023): The letter highlighting the importance of addressing the challenges of workers in AI development for the senators discussing the current. 
  • Attended a late 2024 public hearing on the legal case about the employment relationship between platform workers and companies: Ricardo Festi and Maria Aparecida Bridi presented research, including Fairwork research, to government ministers at an event organised by the Brazilian Supreme Court.  

🇨🇱 Chile

  • Participated in a 2024/2025 Working Group with Chile’s Labour Ministry: The Fairwork Chile team was invited by Chile’s Labour Ministry to participate in an analysis of the implementation of the country’s new platform labour law. 

🇪🇨  Ecuador

  • Presented Fairwork at the Ecuadorian Congress in 2022: The Fairwork team was invited by Congresswoman Johana Ortiz to present the project as part of the government’s debates regarding digital platforms’ labour relationships. Since then, Fairwork Ecuador fed into the draft platform labour bill.  

MERCOSUR 

  • Organised a workshop with the Mercosur Parliament (Parlasur) to discuss the challenges faced by platform workers: Jonas Valente (Fairwork cloudwork project lead) demonstrated how the Principles can inform regulations and guidelines for fairer platform work. 

🇵🇪 Peru

  • Met with the Minister and Vice Minister of Labor in 2022: Fairwork researchers discussed with them the formation of a government Working Group that recommends improvements to the platform economy.  
  • Invited in 2023 by Congresswoman of the Republic and President of the Labor Commission to discuss pending legislation: Fairwork researcher Alejandra Dinegro joined discussions regarding problems in the delivery sector and the importance of debating 2 bills pending approval in the Work Commission. 
  • Awarded Prize for Digital Democracy: Fairwork Peru earned this award given annually to organisations and individuals who help improve our digital society for the team’s efforts to improve conditions of platform workers. 

🇺🇸 US 

  • Provided Testimony at the US House of Representatives in 2024: Fairwork US principal investigator Katie Wells testified in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education & the Workforce, Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, drawing on Fairwork research to address the shortcomings of portable benefit proposals advanced by gig companies.  
  • Cited in a 2023 letter sent by US senators to Big Tech CEOs: In 2023, US Senator Ed Markey drew on the Fairwork AI principles for a letter sent by him and colleagues (Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Jamaal Bowman, Katie Porter, Mark Pocan, Ron Wyden and Pramilia Jayapal) to big-tech CEOs regarding working conditions in AI supply chains. 

International

  • Regularly engages with the International Labour Organization (ILO): The ILO also hosted one of our first tripartite discussions to establish the Fairwork principles. More recently, in October 2024, Valeria Pulignano (PI for Belgium) contributed to preparations for the 2025 ILO Conference, presenting the results of research on care platforms at the ITUC women’s committee. The results will feed the preparations of a strategy to tackle care platform conditions for women. 
  • Led the Manifesto for Fairer Platform Work in 2022: The statement was launched in 2022 to inform the ILO’s discussions on the convention for platform workers, which was added as an agenda point of the 2025 ILO Conference. 

Pathway 3: Consumers

At Fairwork, we believe that when faced with a choice between a poor-scoring company and a better-scoring one, many consumers will choose the most ethical option. Surveys conducted by Fairwork in the UK (London), Brazil (São Paulo) and Colombia (Bogotá) showed that there is collective consumer belief that more robust regulation is required to better protect digital workers.

Our annual ratings allow consumers to select the highest-scoring company operating in a sector, thus applying pressure on companies to improve the working conditions offered. Our “Choose Fairness” tool makes it easier than ever to look up the scores of platforms in your area according to the service you need.

Beyond the tool, we work to ensure Fairwork ratings reach a consumer audience using five key tactics:

1. Offering a consumer pledge

In 2021, Fairwork Pledge launched a two-tiered pledge to enable organisations and individuals to publicly express and action their support for fairer working conditions. So far, the pledge has been signed by 73 organisations representing almost 27 million people. If you care about the rights of digital workers, you too can sign the Fairwork pledge.

IMPACT STORY: McDonald’s Germany

In 2024, McDonald’s Germany joined the Fairwork pledge. With more than 1,400 restaurants across Germany serving meals to more than 2.5 million customers per day – many of them delivered by gig workers from all the major platforms – this commitment from McDonald’s should catalyse meaningful change for workers in Germany’s digital economy. You can read more about this partnership on the corporate social responsibility website from McDonald’s Germany and the Fairwork blog.

2. Supporting companies with supply chain due diligence

Companies across industries increasingly rely on data enrichment or other business process outsourcing (BPO) services throughout their supply chains. The AI data pipelines in which these activities are embedded often involve non-transparent and dispersed workforces, and many lower-level tasks occur in regions with limited regulations. This makes it difficult to identify and address labour standard violations. With the implementation of new corporate sustainability due diligence regulations in jurisdictions like Germany and the EU, understanding the working conditions in these value chain segments is becoming even more important to companies’ due diligence duties. Fairwork is helping companies navigate this challenging landscape, supporting them with due diligence activities, including risk assessment, remediation, monitoring & evaluation, and reporting.

If you or your company need support with due diligence or are interested in becoming Fairwork certified, please get in touch for a tailored quote.

3. Harnessing the media

Fairwork works with journalists to broaden the reach of our findings through newspapers, radio, and TV. To date, Fairwork’s research has been covered in more than 1,600 stories in media outlets across more than 40 countries.

4. Producing engaging digital content

We have actively communicated our research through a range of multimedia outputs shared online. This includes producing two seasons of a podcast that highlights the experiences of workers and insights from researchers across three continents. The podcast examines how platforms like YouTube, OnlyFans, Appen, and Scale are reshaping the global landscapes of labour, revealing the interconnected dynamics of platform work on an international scale.

Fairwork’s YouTube channel features engaging content that brings its research to life, making its significance clear and accessible to anyone who interacts with digital platforms or AI-enabled tools.

5. Erecting billboards and street art

In Colombia, Brazil, the UK, Germany, Bosnia and Ghana, Fairwork has conducted public awareness campaigns using billboards and street art aimed at increasing the visibility of Fairwork’s ratings and raising broad awareness of platform workers’ conditions among the public and policymakers.

Pathway 4: Supporting Workers and their Organisations

The ultimate goal of Fairwork’s research is to improve the lives of workers in the digital economy so naturally, workers are crucial to the project’s theory of change. We engage in ongoing collaborations with workers’ representatives and advocates around the world and use our research to support them in developing and deploying evidence-based strategies for securing their rights.

Workers are involved in all stages of Fairwork’s research process. At the beginning of every scoring cycle, researchers organise a stakeholder workshop to introduce the forthcoming research and to receive feedback from a wide range of stakeholders, which importantly includes all trade unions relevant to the research focus. Then, throughout the scoring cycles, we rely on workers’ bodies to provide important evidence regarding the policies and practices of the platforms we are scoring. We ensure our research also takes workers’ experiences into account directly by conducting surveys and interviews with workers at all of the companies we score. To date, Fairwork has engaged with almost 7,400 workers worldwide. We also solicit input from workers, associations and unions’ feedback when conducting our biannual updates to the Fairwork principles, and their expert feedback is critical to ensuring these principles are adequate in assessing the fairness of work in the digital economy.

Fairwork is also committed to building solidarity between workers’ groups and movements. In 2023, Fairwork facilitated meetings between trade unions, confederations, and workers associations at the national (Brazil, Tanzania, Kenya), regional (Africa) and international level. These meetings have led to the formation of workers’ groups such as the Africa Unions and Worker Representatives (APWR) and a platform workers’ association in Peru, founded in collaboration with one of the leading trade union confederations there.

Fairwork has also collaborated with workers’ groups to make our research more accessible to workers in a variety of geographies. The project has produced resources with and for workers including informational pamphlets in Brazil, Kenya and the Philippines, and context-sensitive illustrations of the Fairwork principles by local artists in Colombia, Philippines, South Africa, Indonesia, Ghana, Egypt and UK. Posters with these illustrations were seen on the picket lines when the South African Western Cape E-hailing Association (WCEA) staged a three-day strike in 2024 appealing to companies like Bolt, Uber and inDriver to meet their demands for fairer work.

We also maintain a directory of unions and workers’ associations. If you would like to be added to this, please reach out to info@fair.work

 

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