A report by The Fairwork Project – a collaboration between various South African and foreign university research units – has found that the non-standard employment status of gig workers during Covid-19 has made them particularly vulnerable during an economic shutdown. However, some gig networking platforms have stepped up to ease the pain.
Fairwork,
which draws on the expertise of staff from the universities of Oxford,
Cape Town, Western Cape, Manchester, Institute of Information Technology
Bangalore in India and the
Technical University of Berlin, wrote a report titled Gig Workers, Platforms and Government During Covid-19, which was released in May 2020.
The report looked at gig economy platforms active in South Africa, government responses regarding informal, freelance or gig economy workers, and actual worker experience surveys. While most platforms regarded workers as independent contracts rather than employees, to their detriment, the report found that gig technology company, M4Jam and SweepSouth actively worked to offset losses of income for contracted giggers.
The
report compiled a scorecard which covered principles of fair pay, fair
working conditions, fair contracts, fair management and fair
representation. The scorecard specifically highlighted
pay-related policies, given their importance to gig workers.
The
scorecard found that three of the top-ranking platforms – M4Jam,
SweepSouth and getTOD – had come up with innovative solutions to the
problems their workers faced during Covid-19
and lockdown. M4Jam and SweepSouth were the only platforms to attempt to
compensate for gig worker pay loss during lockdown.
“Our
survey suggests the majority of gig workers have lost their jobs
entirely, while those able to work during lockdown have, on average,
lost four-fifths of their income. As a result,
many reported that just getting food to eat was their top priority,” the
researchers note.
“While platforms have long marketed themselves as facilitators of supplementary income streams, all of this exposes the complete dependency of most workers on their platforms as the basis for their livelihood,” they wrote.
The
report stated that gig economy platforms, which operate by connecting
jobbers with potential temporary work at corporate entities, should and
could do more to help, by such measures
as reducing commissions, deferring loans, offering healthcare assistance
and sick pay, improving communication and engaging with workers and
their representatives more effectively.
Georgie
Midgley, CEO of M4Jam, said the report’s finding that inaction on
behalf of gig platforms was the norm gave credence to common criticism
of the gig economy. “Unfortunately most
gig economy platforms live up to negative perceptions about jobber
vulnerability. In a country like South Africa where the gig economy can
play a vital role in supplementing income and providing much-needed
temporary employment, the down side is potential exploitation
of workers who do not have the safety net permanent employees have.”
Gig
workers have tended to fall between the cracks of government financial
relief measures, according to the report, principally because they fall
outside the UIF net. “Gig workers
have fallen between two stools: able to access neither the [government]
support offered to formal employees, nor the support offered to those
registered as small businesses. If gig workers are to avoid destitution,
government must take further action,” the
researchers said.
At
the same time, the report said, the value of gig workers to the economy
has been underlined by Covid-19 and lockdown. “Delivery services, for
example, have been essential to society
during lockdown. In the longer term, a legal resolution must be found to
rescue gig workers from the employment-status limbo that the pandemic
has brought into sharp relief.”
The
report found, for example, that both Uber and Bolt ride-hailing
services had closed down their local contact centres, “making it harder
for drivers to interact with the platforms”.
A constant criticism of gig economy platforms is that they simply cannot
provide protection of workers’ rights in the same way that the formal
economy’s employers do.
With
lockdown preventing physical movement of jobbers completing micro-tasks
for corporate employers, the report commended M4Jam’s approach of
collaborating with one of its clients,
Cell C, in rolling out a three-week training initiative that provided
payment to workers for completing up to 48 short lessons undertaking via
their mobile phones.
This
provided further upskilling of contracted jobbers during the down time,
and provided an average of R310 per week for those undergoing the
training. M4Jam works with corporate clients
such as Morecorp, i-People, Twizza, Sereti and more.
The
research found that the trends in South Africa broadly reflected gig
economy trends around the world, with roughly half of gig workers losing
their “jobs” during lockdown.
“We
agree with the report’s findings that if gig economy platforms direct
and exercise control over the work given to contracted jobbers, they
should go to greater lengths to be responsible
for assisting workers in dealing with the effects of Covid-19. This will
not only maintain goodwill with contracted workers and ensure
livelihoods are not lost – it will also show that the gig economy is a
viable long-term alternative for job seekers who cannot
get a foothold in the formal economy,” said Midgley.
