Labour rights more important than ever as digital economy and new tech leave workers exposed
- Tech giants are among major employers under scrutiny as workers remain at risk of exploitation in unfair and dangerous conditions. As work traditions change rapidly, labour laws and enforcement must evolve
After America’s civil war, the need for labour unions to protect workers’ rights grew rapidly and thousands unionised in the 1880s, most notably with the Knights of Labour.
The riot in Chicago’s Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886, came a day after a clash between union workers and police in which one person was killed and several were injured during national protests that began on May 1 to demand a shift from 60-hour working weeks to eight-hour working days.
What started out as a peaceful meeting at Haymarket Square turned violent when a bomb was thrown and police responded with gunfire. More than a dozen people died, with up to 100 injured.
The riot had a powerful effect on the labour movement, and resulted in today’s labour unionism in America. International Workers’ Day, or May Day, was first celebrated on May 1, 1890, after the date was chosen the previous year by the Marxist International Socialist Congress.
Protecting workers’ rights is still important today, with many rights – including to collective bargaining – ignored by employers. The International Labour Organization (ILO) maintains that decent work and economic development should be undertaken to improve lives and not for its own sake.
The right to decent work is also among the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Globally, forced labour, slavery and child labour remain a scourge, despite over 170 ILO member countries having ratified conventions against forced labour and wage discrimination.
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According to a 2020 Know Your Chain report on the world’s 49 largest information communications and technology companies, workers in their supply chains are continually at risk of being forced to work in dangerous conditions.
The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated forced labour conditions, with increased and excessive overtime demands, inadequate and dangerous working and housing conditions, and wages being withheld, among other violations. Lockdowns have exposed the high propensity of worker rights violations, especially in labour-intensive industries such as the garment sector.
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In particular, an Asia Floor Wage Alliance report on six Asian countries found that women workers experienced more verbal, physical and sexual violence during Covid-19, an unacceptable situation it called the “garment industrial trauma complex”.
The growth of artificial intelligence and automation requires new definitions and categories of employees, and for non-traditional work arrangements and rights to be well defined, regulated and enforced.
The ILO has put forward an 18-point criteria to ensure decent work on digital labour platforms, addressing issues such as employment misclassification, freedom of association and collective bargaining, minimum wages relevant to location, payment transparency, flexibility to decline tasks, costs of lost work due to technical issues, and more.
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For instance, India’s recently changed its labour code to include gig workers – for example, those involved in contractual work such as app-based food deliveries or cab services.
With fast-evolving work traditions and technology, rights protection laws need be kept up to date around the world and enforced by multilateral organisations like the United Nations. More than 130 years after the Chicago riots, labour rights continue to face challenges globally, and the spirit of May Day lives on.
