IT for Change, along with a coalition of civil society organizations—including Privacy International and Human Rights Watch—has released a Joint Civil Society Statement in response to the International Labour Organization’s Brown Report on decent work in the platform economy.
The statement outlines key shortcomings in the current draft…
The starting point of this paper is that the value extraction apparatus of digital labor platforms can be understood only by deploying a ‘reproductive lens’ and not through a exclusive focus on their algorithmic optimization strategies in mediating the labor marketplace. Rooted in an in-depth empirical exploration of the experiences of 19 women…
This baseline report, conducted as part of IT for Change’s broader partnership with LabourNet under the ‘Re-wiring India's Digitalising Economy for Women's Rights and Well-being’ project, aims to provide data-backed, specific recommendations for the development of the SAHI Serve app, recognizing the ecosystem in which it is situated and the…
Digital labour platforms function in markets through “matching…the supply of and demand for paid work through an online platform”. One of the major ways in which matching platforms function is through algorithms, which collect vast amounts of data both from the workers and their customers in order to ostensibly optimise their services…
IT for Change's research and advocacy track on labor aims to consider the emergent challenges for workers and laborers in the digital economy, and build a new frontier of labor rights for the 21st century. Our work is primarily concerned with the working conditions of and social security for gig workers, the moral and legal responsibilities of…
A steady stream of public commentary is flowing in about the implications of the draft Rules on Social Security Code, 2020, and the Motor Vehicle Aggregators Guidelines, 2020, for the rights of platform workers. We interrogate these developments from a data rights standpoint. The draft Rules on Social Security Code, 2020, propose the creation…
The Indian Parliament is currently in the process of overhauling the country’s labour laws. Unfortunately, this exercise has sidestepped platform workers, a constituency whose needs and challenges have become especially stark and visible during the pandemic. It is…
As employment in India bounces back from the Covid lockdown, platform-mediated work is expected to come into its own. Indian legislation must take the right steps to protect the status and labour rights of gig workers in these changing times, while unions also need to bring these new workers into the fold.
Under the Covid-19 lockdown,…
In this background paper, IT for Change maps the key issues/concerns for the rights and inclusion agenda, stemming from pervasive platformization. Scoping the platform economy from a development justice perspective, this paper outlines the many intersecting challenges that platforms pose for regulation and puts forth a…
IT for Change participated in the National Consultation for reviewing the Zero draft of the Agreed Conclusions of the 61st Session of the CSW, convened by Programme on Women's Economic Social and Cultural Rights (PWESCR) in February 2017. The submission highlights the need to work towards the larger agenda of building a…