Mr Speaker, Members of the House, Platform Industry colleagues in the Gallery, I support the Platform Workers Bill.
WHY THE BILL MATTERS
The Bill recognises a unique group of self-employed workers that earn a precarious living doing gig jobs. They are the freelance delivery workers, private hire vehicle drivers, and taxi drivers whose earnings and welfare depend on ride-hail and delivery platform operators that price and auto-assign jobs using algorithms.
Over the last decade, ride-hail and delivery platform businesses have stabilised and grown. Many have transcended growth goals and are prioritising larger profit margins.
The Bill is thus well-timed. As it is built on recommendations from the tripartite advisory committee and workgroup, the Bill effects purposeful and substantive change to worker protection and shapes for the better, our social compact in the context of the platform economy and workforce.
If well-implemented, the Bill can guide platform operators to strike the right balance between business profit-making and their duties towards platform workers. By outlining the responsibilities of platform operators towards the work safety and long-term financial security of their platform worker base, the Bill addresses the precariousness of platform work and boosts platform workers’ ability to build sustainable livelihoods.
The Bill also recognises the right of platform workers to form and be represented by Platform Work Associations or PWAs. The bill is a landmark in labour laws because it accords registered PWAs with union-like powers to negotiate with platform operators on work areas such as fair treatment, sustainable earnings, and work safety.
Nevertheless, because how much a platform worker earns depends on how many and what type of jobs the platform assigns, platform workers have shared with NTUC and its affiliated associations – National Delivery Champions Association, National Private Hire Vehicles Association, and National Taxi Association - their hopes for the Bill to establish norms. What norms?
Like other working people, platform workers care about
Being treated with fairness and openness (transparency)
Being appropriately remunerated for their efforts (compensation/ recognition) and
Being accorded the autonomy to manage their work - specifically how tasks are performed, the scope and pace of work, and the scheduling and location of work. (autonomy and flexibility)
However, in a space where the known unknown is uncertainty, before this Bill, many platform workers had looked to the future with despair. Indeed, over the last decade, NTUC and its affiliated associations have been engaging the government, platform operators and other stakeholders on the concerns and issues facing platform workers. The Bill is thus a commendable response by the Government to allay some uncertainties of “pay-per-job” work - where jobs, wages, and the work environment are in constant flux, and where the worker must cede much control of how, when, and where to work to a black box of algorithms and bots.
WHERE CLARITY IS REQUIRED
To provide platform workers with peace of mind, I would like to seek clarity in three areas of the Bill. Before I proceed, I declare my interest as a Labour Movement representative and Executive Secretary of National Delivery Champions Association.
First, I appreciate that the Bill seeks to moderate platform operators’ profit-seeking behaviour and turn the spotlight on workers’ health and safety.
An Institute of Policy Studies 2022 poll found that:
1 in 3 food delivery workers have been in at least one accident that required medical attention; and
Accident risks increased for those who worked longer hours and earned more.
The proposed amendments to the Workplace Safety and Health Act sets out platform operators’ role and responsibilities. Having similar duties as employers under the Workplace Safety and Health Act means that platform operators must flag out platform work risks and take steps to mitigate them.
The Bill also assigns to platform operators, financial responsibility for injury, incapacity or death of a platform worker associated with performing a platform job. By putting a price tag on work risks, concurrent amendments to the Work Injury Compensation Act could motivate platform operators to value worker safety as they value profitability.
Platform operators wield wide-ranging control over platform workers’ pay, based on principles and algorithmic decisions that are a black box to platform workers.
For instance, platform operators might neglect to consider or downplay the risk of injury when assigning an order to a platform delivery worker. Imagine delivering 80 packets of chicken rice or 36 litres of bottled water in a single delivery order and what’s worse, realising there are four flights of stairs or a 10-minute walk to reach the customer. Platform delivery workers – regardless of age or fitness - can relate to these horrors.
We also hear of platform workers feeling compelled to work excessive hours such as 14-16-hour days on end without breaks, to unlock incentive targets. Such unrealistic targets drive platform workers to take unnecessary risks to their health and safety that also impact customers and the public.
To protect platform workers, the law must institute clear guardrails for platform operators to abide by. These guardrails must require operators to adopt a worker-centric viewpoint when reviewing their algorithms, work practices, and workflows. To this end, operators must take a serious look at how their policies and targets might end up risking workers’ health and safety and must take reasonable steps to mitigate these risks.
The amended WSH act also stipulates a code of practice for platform operators; the code is now open for public feedback. This code should reflect the industry guardrails that I mentioned earlier and set a clear tone to demarcate and clamp down on unacceptable practices by platform operators. I urge tripartite partners to take bold steps to call out what is clearly unacceptable: no more policies that require workers to work extended hours non-stop; no more back-breaking loads or unsafe weight limits that exceed workers’ device capacity.
The law must also protect platform workers from being penalised if they take reasonable steps to safeguard their safety and health – workers must be allowed to slow down or pause travel on roads in unsafe conditions; they must be empowered to decline jobs that are too heavy or large for them or their devices to carry. Platform operators must be held accountable if their policies penalise workers for abiding by safety practices.
The laws must ultimately address the risks to life and limb that platform workers face daily. As practices evolve, there must also be avenues for workers to report unsafe practices or penalties imposed by operators that discourage safe practices – workers must have access to a whistle-blowing hotline; and tripartite partners must continue to work closely to review and update the code of practice to address emerging risks.
Thus, I would like to know if the Ministry has plans to ensure the implementation of guardrails to address the risks posed to workers’ safety and health by platform policies and practices.
Second, the Bill directs platform operators to translate part of their economic gain into social value. This matters because platform economy has grown in scale, size, and workforce participation.
I appreciate the amendments to the CPF Act as these changes would boost platform workers’ social security and ability to finance housing and retirement needs. To recap, from 1 Jan next year, platform operators must contribute to the provident funds of platform workers who are born on or after 1995 as well as those who opt-in to the CPF scheme.
I also appreciate the raised income threshold as well as the higher percent government support for the Platform Worker CPF Transition Support Scheme or PCTS that would benefit more platform workers to larger extent. A platform worker who opts in to the CPF scheme and is a PCTS and Workfare Income Supplement recipient would gain from higher overall income and cash pay-out.
Nonetheless, platform workers are concerned about platform operators restricting allocation of jobs, suppressing fares, or raising charges to minimise the operators’ CPF outlay for platform workers onboard the CPF scheme.
Platform workers attribute their low trust of platforms to the fact that many platform operators seem to be only making half-hearted attempts at issuing rate sheets and statements for jobs and earnings that promise clarity and transparency but are neither clear nor transparent. Protocols for job allocation are oftentimes vague. The low-trust is further compounded by glitches that disrupt operators’ apps - sometimes for extended periods. Whenever such situations happen, platform workers are forced to double-up as platform operators’ helpdesk in facing angry customers and merchants while trying but often failing to get help from operators. More crucial, platform workers worry about digital disruptions undermining their livelihoods.
Platform workers thus ask that the Ministry establish safeguards that build on the Bill. These safeguards should hold platform operators responsible for ensuring that platform workers understand how they are being paid so that platform workers can make informed decisions on their work arrangements. Why should platform workers be left guessing and speculating how much they can earn each time they take a job? This breeds a sense of insecurity and deep anxiety over their livelihoods and the welfare of their dependents. Platform operators must also be held accountable for the integrity of app transactions and the knock-on impact of app disruptions to platform workers’ livelihoods.
A constructive approach could have three priorities.
One
is to require platform operators to participate in Singapore’s AI governance testing framework, AI Verify. Today, no platform operators are listed as AI Verify foundation members. Mr Speaker, via AI Verify, organisations would apply standardised tests to validate their AI systems’ performance against internationally aligned AI ethics principles of transparency, explainability, repeatability, safety, security, robustness, fairness, data governance, accountability, human agency and oversight, inclusive growth, and societal and environmental well-being. This matters because the quality of platform workers’ lives and livelihoods much depend on the fair and smooth functioning of platform algorithms. Thus, securing platform operators’ commitment to periodically validate their AI systems against a national framework gives platform workers greater assurance that these black box AI systems are fair, unbiased, and safe.
Two
is to require platform operators to provide some income protection for active platform workers who lose the opportunity to earn during extended platform app outages. We would feel distressed if our work devices crash. While we can take comfort that we are paid on the clock while awaiting IT help, platform workers are paid by the job and the impact of app disruption can go beyond inconvenience and into financial hardship. Some active platform workers were especially hard-hit during platform app outages; their earnings were locked in the app, and they struggled to cover their families’ daily expenses.
LTA’s move to introduce standards for managing operational disruptions for all taxi and ride-hail operators is a positive step because it assigns responsibility and accountability to platform operators. How might the Ministry build on the Bill as well as LTA’s standards to ensure that when technology fails, platform operators continue to uphold the social compact and are consistent in providing some income protection to active platform workers?
Three
is an Ask for platform operators to extend to platform workers, a copy of the terms of services between the platform worker and the platform operator. Platform workers should also be informed on how platforms price fees and earnings. Knowing what each platform pays on average allows platform workers to better plan their work arrangements and finances.
The introduction of the CPF scheme into the platform work-stream marks the maturing of the platform economy. Platform operators must be less like start-ups and more like established firms. The Bill’s oversight should thus extend to affirming fairness and transparency in how platform operators engage, deploy, and compensate platform workers - right at the outset when parties enter a contract.
Recapping - the Bill can empower platform workers to opt-in to the CPF scheme by elevating trust in the system - one, by requiring platform operators to periodically validate their AI systems to ensure fairness; two, by providing platform workers with some income protection in event of extended platform app outage; and three, by requiring platform operators to extend to platform workers, the terms of services and its updates as well as information that would help workers to better grasp how much they can expect to earn based on their work effort.
Third, Platform operators are aware that investors hold fast to unicorn aspirations and expect platforms to deliver faster growth, better return on capital, and higher profit margins regardless of the Bill’s implications. In turn, platform workers are aware of the competing pressures upon platform operators that could erode the worker share of the economic pie.
Platform workers have shared with our associations their worries of platform operators diffusing the cost of Bill compliance among platform workers under the cloak of less-than-transparent earnings statement and/ or brute force implementation.
Therefore, last month, the NTUC announced its intention to register PWAs that represent taxi drivers, PHV drivers, and platform delivery workers should this Bill be passed. This Bill accords the right of voice to platform workers. The Bill also vests in PWAs the right to Act on behalf of platform workers who are PWA members. This is a milestone.
In this regard, PWAs would undertake to advance the livelihoods of associations’ members. PWAs would also undertake to establish the first principles to anchor bi-partite and tripartite discussions with platform operators and other stakeholders.
It is thus in the interests of both platform operators and platform workers to proactively seek out and collaborate with or join a PWA that is balanced and progressive in mindset and approach. Having the right relationships in place from the get-go is crucial to building up platform workers’ trust in the platform work system. This is because issues that arise during platform rides and/ or deliveries can be surfaced, addressed and acted on by platform operators, in collaboration with the PWA.
I value the Ministry’s efforts to consult the other tripartite stakeholders in the crafting of the Bill. Does the Ministry plan to re-introduce tripartite set-ups that can facilitate discussions between the sectoral PWA and platform operators on livelihood issues impacting the sector and its workers? These issues could range from inconveniences arising from infrastructure challenges such as delivery-unfriendly properties to protecting platform workers against work-related harms such as the handling of passengers who insist on vaping in the vehicle or who refuse to belt up.
IN CONCLUSION
In conclusion, technology without guardrails can dehumanise work and the worker. NTUC cares deeply for our platform workers. We champion their interests because every platform worker matters. This Bill is testament.
The Bill recognises that platform work has gone from experimental dabbling to an everyday affair; platform work is also both a career and a community for individuals of different life stages and ages.
Indeed, the Bill is significant because it heralds work and social protections that have impact on the lives and livelihoods of this precarious group of workers. As important, the Bill sets the stage for industrial relations to take root in a new economy and where sustainable development and win-win-win outcomes for workers, operators, and society, can spring forth under the auspices of tripartism and collaboration; so that all can play their part in building a fair social compact and resilient workforce.
