The International Labour Organization's (ILO) adoption of a new global treaty for decent working conditions in the gig economy is a major step toward protecting the rights of millions of workers worldwide, Human Rights Watch said today.
At its 114th session in Geneva, on June 12, 2026, the International Labour Conference adopted the ILO Convention No. 193 concerning Decent Work in the Platform Economy, the first global treaty to set binding labor standards for gig work. The convention addresses long-standing gaps in protection for workers whose jobs are managed through digital labor platforms, including on pay, safety and health, social security, algorithmic management, and correct classification, a key issue for determining whether workers receive protections they are entitled to. The vote was 406 to 8, with 36 abstentions.
"The adoption of this treaty is a turning point for millions of platform workers who are denied labor protections," said Lena Simet, senior economic justice adviser at Human Rights Watch. "Governments have recognized that companies cannot use new technologies as a loophole to avoid workers' rights, including fair pay, safe working conditions, and social security."
Governments should promptly ratify the convention and implement it in domestic law, Human Rights Watch said. Governments should ensure that workers and their organizations are meaningfully involved in implementation and enforcement at the national level.
The convention is the result of a multi-year process. In 2023, the ILO Governing Body placed the issue on the agenda, opening two rounds of negotiations, in 2025 and 2026. Human Rights Watch provided input throughout the drafting process, calling for strong protections for platform workers in line with their human rights.
Platform, or "gig," work is growing rapidly around the world, from taxi and food delivery to care work and online data tasks. The World Bank has estimated that 435 million people globally earn income through labor platforms. Human Rights Watch and other rights and workers organizations have documented that these workers often face low and unpredictable earnings, unsafe conditions, lack of social security, and little recourse when companies cut off their access to work without justification.
Many of these companies treat workers as self-employed or independent contractors, even while controlling key parts of the job through automated systems, including pay, task allocation, performance monitoring, ratings, and account suspension or deactivation. This often denies workers labor protections and shifts the costs and risks of work onto them.
The new convention directly addresses this issue by requiring governments to take measures to ensure that gig workers are correctly classified, based mainly on how their work is performed and paid.
Its broad scope is also significant. The convention applies to platform workers in the formal and informal economy, including work carried out in person, such as taxi and delivery, or online, such as data labelling, content moderation, or other digital tasks.
Some protections apply regardless of classification. These include freedom of association and collective bargaining, elimination of forced labor and child labor, non-discrimination, and a safe and healthy working environment. These protections are important because some of these workers may remain outside an employment relationship even when classification rules are properly applied.
Other protections are tied to employment status. The treaty requires paying workers in a timely manner and providing clear information about their pay and any deductions. They must provide those in an employment relationship with at least the applicable minimum wage, excluding tips, and compensation for work-related expenses in line with national law and practice. For workers not considered employees, governments should consider whether minimum wages should also apply. The treaty addresses a major gap for many workers, ensuring access to social security on terms no less favorable than those with the same employment status.
The convention further requires companies to inform workers about automated systems used to monitor or evaluate their work or generate decisions related to their work, and about how those systems affect working conditions or access to work. It provides for workers' right to request a written explanation and review, with appropriate human involvement, of significant automated decisions that adversely affect their work, including nonpayment, suspension, or deactivation.
In addition, it guarantees safeguards for workers' privacy rights and personal data, and protection against discriminatory or otherwise unlawful suspensions, deactivations, or terminations.
"For too long platform workers have been guinea pigs for the rollout of algorithmic management tools that use their own data to undermine and exploit them," said Tom West, programme director at Privacy International. "This Convention recognises the need for transparency, accountability, and rights over personal data to reset the rules of the game. Governments and employers can now turn to improving their rules, regulations and practices to put an end to algorithmic abuse at work."
The treaty includes specific protections for migrants and refugee platform workers, requiring governments to prevent abuses and provide adequate protections during recruitment, engagement, and work. Human Rights Watch has documented that migrant delivery workers in the Middle East can face recruitment-related debt, dangerous heat, lack of social security, and little recourse when platforms or intermediaries fail to protect them.
The ILO process was expected to produce a recommendation alongside the convention, a non-binding instrument that would have provided more detailed guidance on implementation, but it was not finalized due to lack of time. Future negotiations should prioritize completing that work.
Countries voting in favor included Australia, Mexico, Namibia, Spain, Oman, and Indonesia. Countries voting against included the United States and New Zealand. Countries abstaining included Argentina, Bangladesh, the UK, Libya, and Chile. During negotiations, employers' representatives and a small number of governments sought to limit the scope of rights by arguing for more flexible and less prescriptive rules, while workers' representatives and the majority of governments called for stronger protections to end rights abuses.
"The adoption of this Convention is a landmark moment, and it now needs to be translated into real changes in workers' lives," Simet said. "As AI and automated management increasingly shape work, governments should move quickly to ratify and enforce the Convention, including by ensuring that companies cannot use contractual labels or opaque algorithms to deny workers the protections they are entitled to."
