 Welcome everyone, once again, let's talk about politics and governance today. The topic, platform workers. Are they employees or contractors? Because in Canada and the European Union, the two case studies we're going to have here, the status of platform workers is quite a hot topic. So on both sides of the Atlantic, policymakers, labour advocates are grappling with how to protect the rights of these workers, who are often misclassified as contractors. And so I have invited Raul Gibbert to explain to us to let us know more about the differences, the different approaches that Canada and the European Union are taking to this issue. So we're going to talk about, we're going to discuss the challenges, the opportunities that lie ahead for platform workers in both regions. Raul, welcome to our episode. Yes, good morning. Hello. So Raul, tell us about why you decided to conduct research on platform workers, because the European Union and Canada are both taking steps to address this issue and is an area of active research and debate, apparently. Yeah, I mean, the platform economy, people were thinking about an oil platform here that they're not on the right track. This is the platform economy, big workers, we also call them. It's obviously a part of the economy that is growing exponentially. And this large growth in that sector has really created a mismatch between labour law and practice, but also between labour organisations and actors on the labour market and these workers, where there's now millions who are, as you rightly mentioned, are either misclassified or maybe they're classified correctly, but they're lacking sort of basic protections. And that motivated me to look at the sector and at these workers a little bit more closely to see how they can potentially benefit from some of the protections that other workers do. Yeah, because as you said, it's a sector that are growing exponentially. So there was, and you are very clear in the article about this, there is a clear gap in research when it comes to platform work. Is that so? Well, the gap really exists both in research and in practice, right? It is something that is very quickly developing and has been developing over the last couple of years. So I think research is having to play catch up and trying to wrap its mind around how to tackle this. And we can talk about the two different ways of trying to include these workers in a little bit more detail afterwards. But there's also a gap in the practice, right? So practitioners are actually looking for advice and looking for new solutions to try to deal with the very practical problems that arise, be it occupational health and safety, be it high turnover and dissatisfaction with jobs and so on and so forth that can happen in these conditions. You set out to then explore the rights, several ways of rights for platform workers. So let us know about the most important findings or highlights of your study. So I think my argument as, I'm not a labor lawyer, so labor lawyers can argue the other side. While it is important to obviously update the labor codes and the labor norms that with employment norms and so on and so forth, I think one of my main objectives of the article was to show that labor market actors such as trade unions, but also potentially employers organizations or professional associations, they need to step up to the plate here and they need to reach out to these workers. Because just either squeezing these, and this is the two different ways of doing it that I referred to earlier, just squeezing these platform workers into the existing labor code with a couple of tweaks or creating some other sort of frameworks that would be directed only to platform workers is going to fail if we don't actually reach out to these workers and organize them and have their collective input on it. And I think that is really what this story from the field work also tells quite impressively that when a traditional labor market actor like the trade union reaches out and organizes these people and organizes them their way, meets them halfway and brings them in, then you can get some success with traditional labor law or maybe an upgraded version they're off. But if we don't do that, if it's something that only happens in the field of policy, lawmaking and the labor courts, then we're unlikely to succeed. And maybe that's the pitfalls for the European scenario of we only go about it from the European Union as a directive and then implementation of the countries that needs to be action as well with labor market organizations being involved. Let's talk about action because you revealed a bit about the actors of the labor market in this situation. So I'm curious to know more about policy implications for this, maybe in both cases of Canada and the European Union, what can you tell us about that? Yeah, so I mean I look specifically at the food delivery market as one of the sub sector of these growing a platform work work that's essentially dictated by algorithms and I think a couple of the policy elements that give the workers the tool to work together but also to a certain point to work with their what I would call employers, employers don't always agree with that, to address some of the main issues that's really where policy can help, right? So it is about having information about the algorithms that they work for or that they work under so that scheduling and payment arrangements, fees schedules and so on so forth become at the very least transparent. Questions around discipline, these algorithms that will upgrade or downgrade you based on delivery times and scores that were attributed by the clients, for example. In one basket I would say of transparency dealing with these algorithms themselves and making sure that workers actually understand how they fit into this machinery. The other aspect is occupational health and safety. So the whole issues around workplace safety and workplace accidents. It becomes really tricky when there's no workplace, no physical workplace and nobody will expect from some of these companies to control everything that's going on in terms of the weather, in terms of the road conditions, in terms of other reckless drivers and all of these really horrible stories that I was able to collect during the field work. However, there's policy involved, right? I mean, this is not the first time we have mobile workforce. So there is potential options for the policymaker, be it some form of no-fault insurance, definitely having a payment scheme for, we call it Workman's Comp or Worker's Compensation schemes. So these types of policy tools need to be updated and upgraded in order to protect and include these workers. And what opportunities do you think that there is for further research in this topic? For example, other sectors then food delivery markets or also maybe the role of technologies and the platforms, because you mentioned the algorithm. So what's ahead of us now? Yeah. So I mean, we can think of the platform economy on a sort of scale off, how much autonomy do I have and how good or bad are my working conditions? And in terms of the food delivery sector, people are in the, I would say in the quarter that has very little autonomy in terms of control over their work and that have relatively poor working conditions. But certainly this research and looking at the platform economy also needs to eventually look at other gate workers who may have more autonomy because they have better skills, for example, or people who have better working conditions to a certain point but lack the autonomy. Right. So I think these two elements and the two examples that I gave. So the algorithmic management and the transparency around it, that speaks to the autonomy aspect and the working conditions, be it health and safety problems or pay, vacation, family, equilibrium and so on so forth. That is on a second scale and I think by really going into these two research axes around transparency and the algorithm itself on the one hand and then the working conditions on the other, I think we can start to map out the platform economy a lot better and find solutions that are appropriate for different groups of workers there. Perfect. This has been an episode very straight to the point, but I would like to challenge you to wrap this episode up. If someone just came to join our conversation and you only had one or two sentences to pass the message, the most important message of your research, what would it be? The platform economy is growing, it's not going away and both legislators and labor market organizations need to step up their game in order to reach out to these workers and more meaningfully protect them and include them in the labor market in a meaningful way. Great episode. Raul, thank you very much. Thank you, Rodrigo. To all the viewers, if you are watching us on YouTube, you can find all the resources, all the materials, some background materials and the article that was based on study that was service based for this conversation on the let's talk about politics and governance website. This episode is also available wherever you get your podcast should you prefer an alternative format and you can subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on Twitter at Kojitatio LTA.