Workers in SA’s digital gig economy are struggling to earn a living and face unfair work conditions, a situation worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic.
This is according to a new report launched on Thursday by the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the University of Oxford.
The digital gig economy broadly refers to a labour market comprising freelance and short-term jobs – or “gigs” – in which organisations contract with independent workers on a nonpermanent basis rather than recruiting full-time employees.
As the unemployment crisis worsens in SA, growing numbers of locals are turning to multinational gig economy platforms such as ride-hailing operators Uber and Bolt and food delivery service Uber Eats to make ends meet.
According to the UCT and Oxford Fairwork South Africa 2021 ratings report, gig workers in SA, as in many countries, are often lowly paid, sometimes below the minimum wage, often work in dangerous conditions and are faced with opaque management structures and an inability to organise and bargain collectively.
The ratings report evaluates working conditions in 12 of the most popular digital labour platforms in SA, including Uber, Bolt, food delivery service Mr D, and SweepSouth, which operates an online cleaning services platform.
“Our first and most direct pathway to improving working conditions in the gig economy is by engaging directly with platforms operating in SA,” the authors of the report stated.
“Many platforms are aware of our research, and eager to improve their performance relative to last year, and to other platforms.”
The report is largely based on interviews with workers and platform managers. It conservatively estimates that there are about 30,000 workers in location-based platform work such as taxi driving, delivery and cleaning, and up to 100,000 actively undertaking online work, or “cloudwork”, in SA.
The authors point out that gig economy platforms benefit from a legal loophole that exists in SA, as in most countries: labour rights are limited to workers classified as “employees”. Digital platforms can avoid the costs and duties arising from employees’ rights – minimum pay, maximum hours and paid leave, among others – by classifying their workers as “independent contractors”.
The gig economy has been hampered by instability across the globe as workers push back against poor working conditions and pay. In recent months, drivers for Uber and Bolt took to the streets of SA to protest against poor working conditions and to demand regulation of the industry.
The SA gig economy has undergone dramatic changes during the pandemic. Some sectors, such as e-hailing, have seen significant downturns in earnings while others, such as food delivery, have expanded as society deals with lockdown restrictions.
The report highlights that regardless of the sector in which platform workers operate, most gig workers are more vulnerable to exposure to Covid-19 due to their inability to work from home. Furthermore, the lack of sick pay for many workers means that if they need to self-isolate, they face severe financial insecurity. Without access to the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) or sick pay, gig workers have no safety net if they fall ill.
The report points out that some platforms are moving to implement changes to improve the conditions of their workers. For example, SweepSouth released a public statement confirming its willingness to engage in collective bargaining. The company also established its SweepStars Covid fund to raise money for its workers, many of whom were unable to work during the lockdown of 2020 and 2021. Uber partnered with the African Management Institute during the lockdown to provide drivers access to a personal development programme.
A key challenge in the gig economy, however, is that workers are often isolated, atomised and placed in competition with one another. The platform work model presents challenges for workers to connect and create networks of solidarity, the report states.
“Workers who find their jobs through platforms are ultimately still workers, and there is no basis for denying them the key rights and protections that their counterparts in the formal sector have long enjoyed.”
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