Digital App-Based Workers Join for a Future of Decent Work

Digital App-Based Workers Join for a Future of Decent Work

Jun 3, 2025

When Enoch Gyaesayor logs into a digital app each day to begin picking up passengers and drive around Accra, Ghana, he hopes to get a few hour-long trips where he can be paid the daily top amount from Mondays to Fridays. After paying the company’s commission and job-related expenses, he says he makes 150 cedis ($14.64). 

Enoch Gyaesayor, an app-based driver in Ghana, connected platform workers together in a union to build strength to improve working conditions.

But most of the time, Gyaesayor and thousands of other digital app drivers and riders are paid even less, and often work up to 16 hours a day, even sleeping in their vehicles to save petrol money going home and to be ready to start working again as quickly as possible. Higher pay on weekends does not reduce the amount of time they must work.

“There is no ‘off’ day for the driver,” Gyaesayor says, noting that he works seven days a week to support himself and his family.

In Ghana and in countries around the world, the Solidarity Center is building strength with platform workers to create a broad-based, global movement in which app-based workers join together to assert their rights, protect their lives and improve working conditions. Unions and worker organizations are making democracy real in workplaces, legislatures and global forums.

Digital Platform Work: A Growing Industry that Undercuts Labor Rights

A rapidly exploding industry, digital platform work now employs between 154 million and 435 million workers in online jobs. While often seen as a flexible job arrangement, digital app-based work is a growing business model that systematically undercuts labor rights and protections and shifts the responsibility of costs to workers.


With support by the Solidarity Center and the CGTP, digital platform drivers formed a union to collectively push for decent work and are now at the ILO in Geneva urging passage of a treaty improving work for platform workers worldwide.

Around the world, consumers depend on digital platform workers—requesting rides from Uber or Bolt, ordering meals from Zomato, receiving groceries delivered from Glovo, or viewing content on a social media platform. The online platform acts as an intermediary between the worker and the employer. For most workers, these jobs are not a “side gig”–they are full-time work.

Yet app-based workers in Ghana and in most countries worldwide are defined as “independent contractors,” and so not covered by national labor laws, such as a country’s minimum wage.

Some 3 billion consumers used online food delivery service—groceries and meals—in 2024. Although global food delivery alone was an estimated $380.43 billion in 2024, the workers transporting the food, driving passengers and moderating online content receive little pay and no safe and healthy working conditions. 

Joining Together to Improve Job Conditions

Gyaesayor and other platform workers in Ghana say their top concern is to decrease the percentage of the commission app-based companies require drivers to pay. Uber takes 35 percent from workers’ pay; Bolt, 27.5 percent and Yango up to 25 percent.

The commission fee is only a portion of what workers must pay. With available cars scarce in Ghana, some companies “rent” cars to drivers, adding to a worker’s expense, which also includes mobile phone data, petrol and repairs.

Delivery drivers say they suffer from exhausting workdays, low pay and poor health conditions. Credit: Paloma Luna

Algorithms, which often incorrectly determine distance, time and types of trips offered, further decrease pay. Workers operate at the will of the algorithm and have little recourse to find out why they are locked out of jobs or why kilometers are incorrectly calculated.

“There is a lot of uncertainty and lack of consistency when it comes to rides, how much you will get paid, and so on,” he says.

Gyaesayor, now general secretary of the Digital Transport Workers Union (DTWU), began joining together digital app workers by talking with platform drivers at car parks and shopping malls, urging them to come together to improve their conditions. Several associations representing couriers and other digital workers formed a small association in the Accra and Ashanti regions, By 2023, they created DTWU with a broader reach, joining the Ghana Trades Union Congress (GTUC).

Improve Working Conditions by Joining Together

The digital app union in Ghana, which includes car and bicycle drivers and couriers, is among dozens of platform worker unions around the world, with workers joining together to achieve key goals, including: 

  • Minimum wage standards.
  • Safe working environments.
  • Basic social protections such as annual leave, sick leave and retirement benefits.
  • Labor law coverage in their countries grants them the same rights as all workers.

To gain these basic rights, workers are engaging in legal action to win unpaid wages, receive compensation for job-related injuries and establish safe working conditions. And, they are mobilizing to improve national and local laws. 

Food delivery riders improved pay at FoodPanda in Cebu, Philippines, part of platform workers’ efforts to assert their rights, protect their lives and improve working conditions.
across the globe.

Earlier this year in Mexico, app-based workers campaigned for — and won! — legislative reform that recognizes them as workers and provides access to accident insurance, pensions, maternity leave and company profits. In the Philippines, food delivery riders are improving benefits around the islands. In Cebu, Foodpanda drivers will receive a base fare of 55 pesos (94 cents) and the company will recognize them as employees.

Now, the workers are joining together to take their demands internationally.

Platform Workers Take Global Action

This week, platform work will be formally addressed for the first time on a global stage. At an International Labor Organization (ILO) conference in Geneva, digital app workers and representatives from business and governments are shaping a new international treaty, Realizing Decent Worker in the Platform Economy. 

At an ILO conference in Geneva, digital app workers and representatives from business and governments are shaping a new international treaty to ensure decent work for platform workers around the globe.

Digital app workers have been crafting content that delegates will consider, and joining meetings with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and taking part in a six-day regional workshop in Togo by the ITUC-Africa. Platform workers also are involved in legislative strategies, meeting with their government representatives in advance of the conference. 

Charith Attanapola, an app driver in Sri Lanka, met with the country’s minister of labor to convey platform workers’ challenges and discuss ways the government can improve working conditions.

“One of the key takeaways from our discussion was the government’s openness to ensuring decent work across all labor sectors, including app-based transport workers and delivery personnel,” says Attanapola.

Attanapola is part of the Solidarity Center delegation, which includes workers from Brazil, Chile, Ghana, India, Kenya and Mexico. As these workers testify, negotiate and help shape international labor standards that reflect the reality of their work and their demands, they understand the urgency in ensuring how jobs are shaped will determine the future.

In Ghana, where youth unemployment improved from 16.3 percent in 2000 to 5.4 percent in 2024, Gyaesayor knows that gain can be sustained only if decent work is available.

“Platform work has given employment to the majority of the youth; yet those of us who are working are being used like slaves, we get paid barely any salary,” says Gyaesayor. “The government must listen to the union, or things will get much worse; a lot of youth are going to be unemployed.”

Labor Lawyers Strategize at ILAW’s Third Global Conference

Labor Lawyers Strategize at ILAW’s Third Global Conference

Oct 28, 2024

More than 200 International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network (ILAW) members gathered in Casablanca, Morocco, October 9 to 11 at their 2024 Global Conference to share ideas and to collaborate on legal strategies to promote and defend worker rights.

The Solidarity Center established the ILAW Network in 2018 as a way for pro-labor lawyers worldwide to bring together legal practitioners and scholars in an exchange of ideas and information in order to best represent the rights and interests of workers and their organizations wherever they may be.

ILAW lawyers working together have taken legal strategies that are successful in one country and deploy them elsewhere. In doing so, they have set new legal precedents that build a stronger foundation for the expansion of worker rights around the globe. 

Credit: Mosa’ab Elshamy

Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau welcomed attendees, describing the network of over 1,300 members in more than 90 countries as “uniquely situated to take on global corporations suppressing worker rights.”

She cited the successful advocacy of women labor lawyers for new International Labor Organization (ILO) treaties, like Convention 189 on domestic workers and Convention 190 on violence and harassment.  

Solidarity Center Rule of Law Director and ILAW Network Chair Jeffrey Vogt laid out the conference’s purpose. “Around the world, the rights of workers and unions are under attack. Employers are well-resourced and coordinated in their efforts to shape law and policy. It is essential that workers and unions do the same. Through ILAW, we can learn from each other, build from successes and failures, and strengthen our impact through legal solidarity.”

Credit: Mosa’ab Elshamy

The importance of interconnectedness was woven throughout many plenary sessions and discussions. Networking, learning from and collaborating across countries and regions was a key part of the conference, as attendees talked about the commonalities of their work.

The opening plenary, moderated by Solidarity Center’s Rule of Law Deputy Director Monika Mehta, focused on the impact of technology in the world of work, including but not only digital platform workers, from  Amazon warehouses workers to content moderators for major social media firms.

Panelist Liz Lenjo described the content moderators in Kenya who filed a lawsuit against Meta (the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads) and Sama, the local contractor, citing poor working conditions, union busting and inadequate mental health support.

These workers were hired to screen posts, videos and messages for Facebook and remove harmful or offensive content. Workers spent hours viewing violent and disturbing images and videos. They were left on their own to deal with the psychological trauma. In a landmark ruling, the Kenyan court determined it had jurisdiction over Meta. 

Credit: Mosa’ab Elshamy

Sandra Muñoz discussed how women in Colombia’s parliament recently passed legislation to harassment in the workplace and linked the fight for equality to equality for all. “Unless we can overcome inequality,” Muñoz said, “we can’t overcome inequality as a whole.”

Kayan Leung also described successful litigation she undertook in South Africa to establish parity in paid parental leave in order that the responsibility of care does not default to women. The ILAW Network filed an amicus brief in that case.

During the panel on Just Transition, Angelica Maria Palacios Martinez spoke about the efforts to get Colombia’s government to recognize trade unions’ essential role in Just Transition and protecting the whole population. “From the trade union world, we have called out the government to recognize us as a key player, she said, “so that these public policies are focused on protecting the entire population, and in particular, protecting the workers.”

Abdullah Nahid of the Maldives, one of the countries most affected by climate change, described union efforts to support workers in the tourism and fisheries sector. 

On the panel on the informal economy, Madhulika Tatigotla discussed the growth of the informal economy in India. India’s informal economy continues to grow, as the formal sector continues to informalize as, for example, 40 percent of factory workers are now on temporary contracts. Recently, workers and their legal advocates developed a comprehensive draft law for workers in the informal economy to extend labor rights and benefits.  

In the final right to strike plenary, Paapa Danquah noted the increasing international threats to the right to strike, linking it to civil liberties. “The attack on the right to strike on the international level is the first step to taking away the right to strike everywhere,” Danquah said. “Whenever you see attacks on the right to strike, there are also attacks on collective bargaining and civil liberty.” He described how the ITUC was involved in litigation before the International Court of Justice to protect the right to strike as a principle of international law. 

As the conference ended, attendees discussed priorities for the coming year, from more collaboration between all members to deepening national and regional labor law networks, cross-pollination between ILAW regions, increasing engagement with social movements and Indigenous communities in order to support union growth. Attendees left the conference energized and committed to forging a robust labor law network for a stronger global labor movement.