Human Rights Commission Expresses Opinion on 'Platform Workers Protection Act' to the National Assembly

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-ju] The National Human Rights Commission has expressed the opinion that platform workers should be presumed to be employees first, and that improvement measures are needed regarding excessive commission deductions.

The Human Rights Commission announced on the 30th that it expressed such an opinion on the "Act on the Protection and Support of Platform Workers," which is currently under discussion in the National Assembly.

The Commission first pointed out that the bill applies this law primarily to all platform workers, but there is an issue where those who meet the conditions to be classified as employees under labor relations law are still categorized as "non-employees." To improve this, it stated that "platform workers in the narrow sense who provide labor through a platform that influences job assignments, etc." should be presumed to be employees first.

In addition, the Commission added that regulations should be established to hold jointly liable those who, besides platform operators, are in positions that substantially control or decide the conditions of labor provision, if they infringe on the rights and interests of platform workers, and that collective rights such as the right to unionize and collective bargaining of platform workers should be explicitly stipulated.

Furthermore, the Commission also expressed opinions on the need to prepare improvement measures for excessive commission deductions and to expand the scope of perpetrators of harassment and other acts from "platform-using businesses" to "anyone." The Commission stated, "We hope the National Assembly will legislate promptly through discussions to guarantee and improve the labor rights of platform workers."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.