WageIndicator at 'Ethical AI Work and Platform Accountability'
ABOUT THE EVENT
The Data Labelers Association (DLA) organised a hybrid stakeholder engagement forum focusing on ethical AI work and platform accountability.
Martijn Arets' contribution focused on ways of calculating a minimum tariff for data workers. He distinguished between “conditions” and “methodologies for calculating a minimum wage”. The conditions concern agreements on paying workers on time, preventing unpaid work and taking into account platform commissions and foreign currency exchange rates.
He described ways of calculating a minimum pay based on both consensus-based methodologies and cost-of-living-based methodologies for both employed and self-employed workers. He discussed the Living Wage for employed workers and the Living Tariff for self-employed workers.
His contribution sparked a lively discussion about the terminology used. For example, is it justified to use the words “decent” and “minimum” in a single sentence, especially when people are used to the minimum wage being far from enough to live on “decently”? There was also an interesting discussion about the risk of organisations using minimum standards not to pay more, but to pay less. These are all important topics that we will take into account in further discussions with the Data Labelers Association, which we support in the “pay” section of their upcoming code of conduct for data workers.
Date and Time:
31 July 2025 | 12:00 (EAT) | Hybrid event (Nairobi / Online)