DLSU leads Fairwork Philippines project

DE LA SALLE UNIVERSITY RECENTLY EMBARKED ON THE FAIRWORK PHILIPPINES PROJECT, which is part of the GLOBAL FAIRWORK NETWORK based in the University of Oxford, seeking to advance fair labor conditions in the digital economy, and specifically of gig workers, across the world.

Dr. Cheryll Ruth Soriano of the Department of Communication is the principal investigator of Fairwork Philippines. The project is lodged in the DLSU Social Development Research Center.

This project will examine the conditions of workers engaged in these on-demand service platforms, the communicative infrastructure underlying them, and assess the labor arrangements facilitated by labor platform design.

It seeks to arrive at key policy and program interventions for shaping fairer local labor standards and structures for gig and freelance workers (specifically) and for the global digital economy (broadly).

Soriano noted how global and Philippine-based gig work platforms catering to local demand for food, transportation, cleaning, and general service delivery such as Grab, FoodPanda, and Angkas are hiring Filipino workers at an increasing pace. This exponentially growing gig economy also provides work to thousands of Filipinos who lost jobs in the formal and informal economy during the pandemic.

“With an expanding middle-class with increasing disposable income and lockdowns pushing for on-demand goods and services, we can expect a growing demand for local gig work platforms in the months and years ahead. Intersecting with prevailing norms of labor informality and lack of viable employment alternatives, these platforms attract high numbers of workers and aspirants, often with poorly regulated standards of work,” Soriano said.