IOSH calls for Government action to protect gig workers

In a new white paper, IOSH shines a light on the disadvantages faced by platform workers in the gig economy and also urges the Government to look for alternatives to zero-hour contracts.

The paper, A platform for success: building a better future in the gig economy, highlights how an estimated 1.7 million people made up the UK’s gig workforce last year – a figure predicted to grow by more than 300 per cent by 2027.

IOSH, the global chartered membership body for health and safety professionals, believes that while platform work provides flexible employment valued by many people, the non-standard working arrangements provide health and safety challenges. Many platform workers reportedly experience poor health and safety management and long working hours.

Despite one in five gig workers saying this was their main source of income, an IOSH survey of 1,000 platform workers in the gig economy conducted last year showed that 58 per cent experienced unpredictable income. The same number said gig work made it difficult to care for dependants while 54 per cent had low levels of job security.

In the paper, IOSH has listed a series of calls to action for the Government, to ensure platform workers benefit from a safe and healthy working environment. These measures include the below.

• Introducing legislation which entitles gig and platform workers to the same rights as all other employees. 
• Proactively enforcing employment and occupational safety and health protections for gig and platform workers through an adequate system of inspection. 
• Seeking other options to zero-hour contracts which offers the same level of care for their health, safety and wellbeing as that of permanent employees. 
• Providing legal assurance regarding labour protections, including insurance against work-related injuries and occupational diseases.
• Implementing regulations that facilitate gig and platform workers to raise a complaint about poor treatment and conditions. 
• IOSH is also calling on businesses which run digital labour platforms to ensure they have implemented proactive health and safety measures.

Ruth Wilkinson, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at IOSH, said: “Many of those who currently work in the gig economy benefit from the flexibility it offers and opportunities for a good work-life balance. However, there are many drawbacks which overshadow these perks, ones which pose risks to people’s safety, health and wellbeing and are inconsistent with decent work standards and principles.

“The absence of social protections or provisions in this type of work, for example the right to paid sickness absence, can lead to issues such as people working while too ill to do so or experiencing health impacts from not having any time off, resulting in fatigue or ‘burnout’.

“It’s time for those people working in the gig economy to receive the same protections as those employed on more ‘traditional’ contracts and step away from the precarity, unpredictability and the insecurity that is associated with gig and platform work.”