Fair work
There are now millions of workers that live all over the world, doing work that is outsourced via platforms or apps. Platform work provides essential income and opportunities to many. However, lacking protection from employment law or collective bodies, many platform workers face low pay, precarity, and poor and dangerous working conditions.
The Fairwork Foundation is committed to highlighting best and worst practices in the emerging platform economy. We have brought together platforms, workers, trade unions, regulators, and academics to set global principles for fair work in the platform economy. Those principles been revised a series of tripartite workshops in South Africa, India, and Germany. Using those principles, we give every platform a ‘fairness’ score.
The Fairwork project draws on the expertise and experience of staff at the Universities of Oxford, Cape Town, Manchester, and the Western Cape on work practices and working conditions in digital labour platforms. Project staff work to translate our principles into measurable thresholds, conduct rigorous research to evaluate platforms against those thresholds, and publish our results in a transparent manner.
CURRENT COLLABORATORS
Jana Ababneh, Eisha Afifi, Wirawan Agahari, Pablo Aguera Reneses, Iftikhar Ahmad, Tariq Ahmed, Shamarukh Alam, María Belen Albornoz, Luis Pablo Alonzo, Oğuz Alyanak, Hayford Amegbe, Branka Andjelkovic, Marcos Aragão, María Arnal, Arturo Arriagada, Daniel Arubayi, Sami Atallah, Tat Chor Au-Yeung, Ahmad Awad, Razan Ayesha, Adam Badger, Meghashree Balaraj, Joshua Baru, Ladin Bayurgil, Ariane Berthoin Antal, Alessio Bertolini, Wasel Bin Shadat, Virgel Binghay, Ameline Bordas, Maren Borkert, Álvaro Briales, Lola Brittain, Joe Buckley, Rodrigo Carelli, Eiser Carnero Apaza, Eduardo Carrillo, Maria Catherine, Chris King Chi Chan, Henry Chavez, Ana Chkareuli, Andrea Ciarini, Antonio Corasaniti, Pamela Custodio, Adriansyah Dhani Darmawan, Olayinka David-West, Luisa De Vita, Alejandra S. Y. Dinegro Martínez, Brikena Kapisyzi Dionizi, Ha Do, Matías Dodel, Marta D'Onofrio, Elvisa Drishti, Veena Dubal, James Dunn-Willimason, Khatia Dzamukashvili, Pablo Egaña, Dana Elbashbishy, Batoul ElMehdar, Elisa Errico, Úrsula Espinoza Rodríguez, Patrick Feuerstein, Roseli Figaro, Milena Franke, Sandra Fredman, Farah Galal, Jackeline Gameleira, Pía Garavaglia, Chana Garcia, Michelle Gardner, Navneet Gidda, Shikoh Gitau, Slobodan Golusin, Eloísa González, Rafael Grohmann, Martin Gruber-Risak, Francisca Gutiérrez Crocco, Seemab Haider, Khadiga Hassan, Richard Heeks, Sopo Japaridze, Mabel Rocío Hernández Díaz, Luis Jorge Hernández Flores, Victor Manuel Hernandez Lopez, Nur Huda, Huynh Thi Ngoc Tuyet, Francisco Ibáñez, Neema Iyer, Tanja Jakobi, Athar Jameel, Abdul Bashiru Jibril, Ermira Hoxha Kalaj, Raktima Kalita, Revaz Karanadze, Zeynep Karlidağ, Lucas Katera, Bresena Dema Kopliku, Maja Kovac, Zuzanna Kowalik, Anjali Krishan, Martin Krzywdzinski, Amela Kurta, Ilma Kurtović, Morad Kutkut, Tobias Kuttler, Arturo Lahera-Sánchez, Jorge Leyton, Annika Lin, Georgina Lubke, Bilahari M, Raiyaan Mahbub, Wassim Maktabi, Oscar Javier Maldonado, Laura Clemencia Mantilla León, Claudia Marà, Ana Flavia Marques, Margreta Medina, Rusudan Moseshvili, Jamal Msami, Karol Muszyński, Hilda Mwakatumbula, Beka Natsvlishvili, Mounika Neerukonda, Ana Negro, Chau Nguyen Thi Minh, Sidra Nizambuddin, Claudia Nociolini Rebechi, Bonnita Nyamwire, Mitchelle Ogolla, Oluwatobi A. Ogunmokun, Frederick Pobee, Daviti Omsarashvili, Caroline A Omware, Nermin Oruc, Christian Nedu Osakwe, Balaji Parthasarathy, Francesca Pasqualone, María Inés Martínez Penadés, Leonhard Plank, Frederick Pobee, Valeria Pulignano, Jack Linchuan Qiu, Jayvy R. Gamboa, Ananya Raihan, Antonio Ramírez, Juan-Carlos Revilla, Ambreen Riaz, Alberto Riesco-Sanz, Nagla Rizk, Moisés K. Rojas Ramos, Federico Rosenbaum Carli, Cheryll Ruth Soriano, Julice Salvagni, Derly Yohanna Sánchez Vargas, Maricarmen Sequera, Murali Shanmugavelan, Aditya Singh, Shanza Sohail, Janaki Srinivasan, Anna Sting, Isabella Stratta, Zuly Bibiana Suárez Morales, David Sutcliffe, Mubassira Tabassum Hossain, Tasmeena Tahir, Ainan Tajrian, Dinh Thi Chien, Kiko Tovar, Funda Ustek Spilda, Jonas Valente, Giulia Varaschin, Daniel Vizuete, Annmercy Wairimu, Jing Wang, Robbie Warin, Nadine Weheba, Katie J. Wells, Anna Yuan and Sami Zoughaib
PUBLICATIONS
Heeks, R., Wall, P. J., and Graham, M. 2024. Pragmatist-critical realism as a development studies research paradigm. Development Studies Research, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/21665095.2024.2439407
Ferrari, F., Bertolini, A, Borkert, M., and Graham, M. 2024. The German platform economy: Strict regulations but unfair standards?, Digital Geography and Society. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diggeo.2024.100084
López, T., Feuerstein, P., de Vera, J., Varaschin, G,. Karlidağ, Z., and Graham, M. 2024. Cloudwork als Chance für den Globalen Süden? Einkommens- und professionelle Entwicklungschancen von Online-Plattformarbeiter*innen im Übersetzungs- und Transkriptionssektor. (Cloudwork as an opportunity for the Global South? Income and professional development opportunties of online platform workers in the translation and transcription sector). Standort: Zeitschrift für Angewandte Geographie. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00548-023-00904-8
Van Belle, J.-P., Howson, K., Graham, M., Heeks, R., Bezuidenhout, L., Tsibolane, P., du Toit, D., Fredman, S., and Mungai, P. 2023. Fair work in South Africa's gig economy: A journey of engaged scholarship, Digital Geography and Society. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diggeo.2023.100064
Cole, M., Cant, C., Ustek-Spilda, F., Graham, M. 2022. Politics by Automatic Means? A Critique of Artificial Intelligence Ethics at Work. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence. 5. DOI=10.3389/frai.2022.869114
Graham, M. and Ferrari, F. (eds) 2022. Digital Work in the Planetary Market. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Ustek-Spilda, F., Howson, K., Johnston, H., Bertolini, A., Feuerstein, P., Bezuidenhout, L., Alyanak, O., and Graham., M. 2022. Is anonymity dead?: Doing critical research on digital labour platforms through platform interfaces. Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation. Vol. 16(1):72-87. DOI: 10.13169/workorgalaboglob.16.1.0072
Fairwork. 2020. Fairwork South Africa Ratings 2020: Labour Standards in the Gig Economy. Cape Town, South Africa; Oxford, UK; Manchester, UK.
Graham, M., Woodcock, J., Heeks, R., Mungai, P., Van Belle, J-P., du Toit, D., Fredman, S., Osiki, A., van der Spuy, A., Silberman, S. 2020. The Fairwork Foundation: Strategies for improving platform work in a global context. Geoforum. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.01.023
Fairwork. 2019. The Five Pillars of Fairwork: Labour Standards in the Platform Economy. Oxford, UK; Manchester, UK; Cape Town, South Africa; Bangalore, India.
Graham, M. and Woodcock, J. 2018. Towards a Fairer Platform Economy: Introducing the Fairwork Foundation. Alternate Routes. 29. 242-253.
Graham, M and Shaw, J. (eds). 2017. Towards a Fairer Gig Economy. London: Meatspace Press.