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Sadhana Sanjay conducted a session on ‘ILO Proposed Instrument and Barriers in Digital Trade Rules’ at the Unions for Trade Justice Campaign Workshop held in Quezon City (Metro Manila) from 19-20 August 2024. The workshop was organized by Public Services International, in collaboration with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. The workshop brought together trade unions representing different sectors from across the Asia-Pacific region.
During her session, Sadhana discussed the rise of the platform economy and the regulatory relationship between platform governance and digital trade rules. She highlighted how the negative impact of platform work on workers' rights stems not only from the erosion of existing decent work guarantees but also from the creation of new challenges for workers through the use of data and algorithms to manage and organize labor.
In light of the increasing precarity within the platform economy, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has proposed a new instrument to regulate this sector. However, digital trade rules may undermine the effectiveness of this proposed instrument. Sadhana argued that through provisions that emphasize unrestricted cross-border data flows, prohibit requirements of source code disclosure, and the continued moratorium on tariffs and duties on electronic transmissions, platform companies can successfully evade binding and effective regulation of their labor practices.
View Sadhana's presentation here.