Platform work – the matching of the supply of and demand for paid labour through an online platform – often depends on workers who operate in a “grey area” between the archetype of an employee and a self-employed worker. This important book explores the utility of the International Labour Organization’s existing standards in governing this phenomenon. It indicates that despite their relevance, many standards have little or no impact. The standards apply to the issue but they fail to connect with it. The author shows how three ILO conventions – the Home Work Convention, 1996 (No. 177), the Private Employment Agencies Convention, 1997 (No. 181), and the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189) – can be revitalised to have an impact on the platform work debate. In the course of the analysis he responds in depth to such questions as the following: What are digital labour platforms? What does decent work mean? Did the ILO centenary fundamentally change anything? What is the link between private employment services and platform work? How do crowdworkers relate to homeworkers and teleworkers? Are platform workers engaged in domestic work? What form could a future ILO standard on platform work take? Given that the ILO plans to start discussions on a potential future standard for platform work in 2022, this book will prove very useful in highlighting the issues and standards that such discussions should consider. Research has shown that the techniques and tools of the platform economy have spread far beyond gig work, resulting in widespread “gigification” and restructuring of workplace behaviours and relationships, jobs, and communities across the world. For this and other reasons, including the book’s detailed analysis of issues not addressed elsewhere, labour lawyers, in-house counsel, researchers, and policymakers will gain valuable insight into what decent work in the platform economy would require, thus greatly broadening the discussion on this difficult-to-regulate phenomenon.

An ILO code of practice

This book provides a brief but thorough introduction to the formulation, adoption and application of internationally agreed standards of good practice in labour matters - international labour Conventions and Recommendations - and has been updated to cover developments up to mid-1997. The manual is intended for trade unionists, students and the general reader interested in labour matters, social issues and human rights. It is designed for use on workers' education courses as well as for individual study.

No one will deny that labour standards comprise a necessary framework for balanced economic and social development. Yet on a global level such balanced development has not occurred, despite the existence of a rigorous body of international labour law that has been active and growing for almost one hundred years. The implementation of this law devolves upon states; yet many states have failed to honour it. If we are to take serious steps toward a remedy for this situation, there is no better place to start than a thorough, well-researched survey and analysis of existing international labour law - its sources, its content, its historical development, and an informed consideration of the barriers to its full effectiveness. This book is exactly such a resource. It provides in-depth interpretation of the crucial International Labour Organisation (ILO) instruments - Constitution, conventions, declarations, resolutions, and recommendations - as well as such other sources of law as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and various model and actual corporate codes of conduct. Among the substantive areas of labour law covered in this book are the following: • the relationship between international labour law and economic competition • standards on industrial relations • collective bargaining and dispute settlement procedures • protection of trade unions • prohibitions on enforced and child labour • promotion of equal opportunity and treatment • time and rest provisions • wage determination and protection • occupational health and safety provisions • special issues on non-standard forms of employment • foreign and migrant workers • social security provisions • privacy protection The presentation demonstrates that these rules and standards offer invaluable benchmarks to governments, judiciaries, employers, and trade unions. The book's combination of detailed commentary and an overarching social policy will make it especially valuable to legislators, human resources managers, employers ́ organizations, trade unions, jurists, and academics concerned with the role of work in our globalized social system. This fifth edition of the book by Jean-Michel Servais analyses the potential of those standards in a globalized world, and the necessary evolution. It examines the actual implementation of those rules in the national context, comparing different experiences. It integrates the latest instruments. It examines the most recent public debates on labour regulation (dealing with health and security at work, personal data, minimum wages, social security, strikes, etc.), updates the bibliography and opens some perspectives for the future work of the global institutions.