No more “digital day laborers“, as he describes to delivery men and drivers of Uber, DiDi and the like, the new proposal in the Chamber of Deputies. Vista for The Taxpayer, the initiative of the deputy Isaias Gonzalez It aims to establish an unprecedented regulation in Mexico, but that does have references in other parts of the world.
The idea is essential: provide a minimum social security floor to digital platform workers, a request that the movement #Niunrepartidormenos already done since it was founded. The proposal in question contemplates that digital workers must access social security, being registered by the platform or platforms for which they work. They should also sign a contract that, among other things, establishes that the platform must pay for the gasoline consumed by making deliveries or trips.
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A modified Federal Labor Law
Congressman González establishes in his proposal that digital platforms have everything for “evade current labor regulations“, but it assumes that their presence can be benign because they give job opportunities to people who have difficulties to fully enter the traditional labor market, and it lists among them students and women and men with family responsibilities or, people who have been unemployed for a long time.
But if the platforms do not provide social security, there is a decrease in the well-being of the workers, explains Congressman González.
The idea is to incorporate a whole new chapter of digital platform workers in the Federal Labor Law. The articles there would regulate the work of drivers, delivery men, transporters, messengers “and any other that with the help of electronic tools through digital platforms, carry out activities for one or more employers“.
Article 330-Ñ establishes that there should be a contract that establishes the amount of the salary, the date and form of payment, in the understanding that the salary may be agreed by trip, delivery, by embargo, by percentage, or any other modality agreed by the parties.
Right there it should be established that the costs for work lost due to technical problems on the platform “will be assumed by it“.
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The platforms, in addition to registering the workers and they would have to take care of maintenance “of vehicles, equipment and other tools necessary for the provision of service“. Not only that: They should pay for the gasoline used and even assume the costs of telecommunications services that the worker needs.
The workers of the digital platforms would also have obligations, among which are to comply with the working day they choose, as long as the time established by the Federal Labor Law is not exceeded. They are also required to communicate the costs of telecommunications and gasoline services, as well as to “take greater care in the storage and conservation of equipment, vehicles and other tools used to provide the service“If workers had a period of inactivity greater than 60 days without just cause, their contract would be terminated.
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The proposal also contemplates that there be a Official Mexican Standard to establish parameters for the operation of the algorithm system of digital platforms and monitor its operation. The NOM itself would also have to regulate what has to do with the proper use of the geolocation of workers. Finally, the initiative contemplates that digital workers can partner to form unions.
“At a global level, digital platforms have also distorted labor regulation, by questioning whether the workers of digital platforms fall within their protection framework, since these companies break into national economies ignoring the labor regulations of social protection, as well as the regulatory framework of the economic activity in which they operate. In fact, by naming their workers as ‘partners’, ‘drivers’, ‘collaborators’ or ‘suppliers’, these platforms seek to establish that they are new business associations, even by defining them as self-employed workers, it is a matter of avoiding the employment relationship and the obligations associated with it “.
Proposed document of Deputy González
The document takes up similar regulations that have occurred in other countries. In California, the United States, it is a discussion that continues, as in the United Kingdom, Spain, Chile and Uruguay. The International Labor Organization itself has positioned itself in favor of having social protection for digital workers.
The initiative now goes to committees where it will be analyzed. If it receives enough support, it can become an opinion to advance towards the plenary session of the chamber, where it would have to be voted on. If it receives a majority in favor, it would then go to the Senate of the Republic. Even in the scenario where the initiative is suspended in any of the stages, could become a precedent for future initiatives in future legislatures resume the regulation of work on digital platforms.
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