ED Policy on platform work

Trilateral accord is first step toward establishing digital economy

Unions, management and the government have reached their first social consensus on a so-called platform for workers. The Economic, Social & Labor Council announced its “agreement to reinvigorate the platform economy and support workers engaged in the digital economy,” Wednesday, prepared by an affiliated committee on digital conversion and the future of labor. Platform work is a relatively new job type, in which work is traded using digital platforms as a medium. Platform workers vary widely ranging from delivery workers and chauffeurs to webcomic artists and software developers.

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he agreement focused on the IT and software sectors in particular. Under the accord, unions will cooperate to strengthen the competitiveness of these sectors, management will improve the treatment of platform workers while cooperating to develop their abilities, and the government will support their activities. As the committee emphasized, the agreement was significant in that the three sides took the first steps toward protecting platform workers with regard to related regulations and principles.

It is natural that transactions involving workers are made based on digital platforms in a digital economy and that related officials should try to find and tackle relevant tasks brought forth by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The spread of a contactless culture amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic will also likely serve as another catalyst for the platform economy. In reality, however, there is no clear definition of digital platforms, or reliable statistics. It was desirable for a trilateral agreement to come even before the establishment of laws and regulations governing new working patterns.

At stake is how to implement the agreement. If strengthening the IT and software sectors is needed in these times of digital conversion, the three sides should make concerted efforts to not just improve the treatment of platform workers but to sharpen these sectors' competitiveness.

If unions and the government pass all this responsibility on to management, the country can hardly expect to have a sustainable model of development in these areas. Especially important will be the government's role. It should speed up efforts to help establish a desirable industrial ecosystem by facilitating legal and institutional regulations.