Fairwork - Brazilian researchers publish manifesto on the country’s regulation of platform work

The new Brazilian government, led by Lula da Silva, has expressed its intention to address the regulation of platform work later this year. But what about the workers? Have they been heard? What are their needs and concerns?

(PC: Wagner Vilas/Shutterstock)

The new Brazilian government, led by Lula da Silva, has expressed its intention to address the regulation of platform work later this year. Since January, the Minister of Labour, Luiz Marinho, has been talking to platform companies, trade unions, and delivery workers. There is still no certainty about the direction of this regulation or its central points.

Most pressing, there is no certainty whether delivery workers – the majority of whom operate outside major trade unions – will be properly heard during the formal negotiation around regulation. The National Association of Platform Delivery Workers (ANEA) has stated that they have not been properly heard by neither the government nor the trade union centrals, of which there is a faction against the direct representation of delivery workers in the negotiation.

The majority – and the most representative part – of Brazilian researchers on the subject, with the participation of the Fairwork team, came together to publish a joint manifesto explaining guidelines for platform regulation that consider workers’ rights and decent work. Notably, Brazil is globally recognized for having produced high quality, independent research and data on the subject. Thus, academia is an important stakeholder that should be heard by the Brazilian government.

Read the full manifesto, written and signed by a number of associations and researchers.