Fairwork Uruguay 2025 Scores: Stratification, vulnerability, and labor rights of workers in the platform economy in Uruguay: the challenges of regulation

Fairwork Uruguay 2025 Scores: Stratification, vulnerability, and labor rights of workers in the platform economy in Uruguay: the challenges of regulation

The Fairwork Uruguay 2025 report presents the second evaluation of working conditions in the country’s platform economy, focusing on five major geolocation-based platforms: Soydelivery, Cabify, PedidosYa, Rappi, and Uber. The findings reveal that job insecurity remains the norm in Uruguay, characterized by a stratification of vulnerability where risks and costs are systematically transferred to workers through the legal fiction of “self-employment”. This report is particularly significant as it highlights a deepening confrontation between consolidated labor jurisprudence (which has unanimously recognized the dependent nature of platform work) and the recent Law No. 20,396. While this new law seeks to establish minimum levels of protection, it has faced criticism for potentially legitimizing informal hiring practices and offering a second-level protection system that falls short of the full labor guarantees previously secured through the courts.

Based on a methodology of desk research, platform engagement, and 28 worker interviews, the study assesses each company against Fairwork’s five principles: fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation. The 2025 scores show that only Soydelivery achieved a high rating of 8 out of 10, demonstrating that fair work practices (such as paying a living wage and providing safety equipment) are viable within the digital model. In contrast, the other four platforms failed to prove compliance with basic standards, often being unable to demonstrate not imposing unfair contractual clauses that exempt the company from liability or showing the existence of  effective channels for workers to appeal arbitrary algorithmic decisions. This disparity underscores the urgent need for a regulatory evolution that moves beyond minimum standards to ensure that the profitability of the platform sector is no longer built upon the vulnerability of its workforce.