A report by the Fabian Society and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, published on 16 August, calls on the UK government to have the Fair Work Agency litigate against platforms that use bogus self-employment, a practice that strips around 4 million gig economy workers of basic rights.
The report calls on the Fair Work Agency, established in April as a labour rights enforcement body, to use its civil litigation powers against companies suspected of the practice. Titled Status critical, the report also proposes reversing the burden of proof: requiring companies to demonstrate that a worker is self-employed, rather than workers having to litigate their own status. The debate resonates in Mexico, where legislative discussion on labour subordination in digital platforms is examining a comparable mechanism, in a system where the classification of drivers and delivery workers currently falls on the workers themselves.
The UK recognises three categories of employment status: employee, intermediate worker, and self-employed. According to the report, covered by The Guardian, up to 4 million people, including stylists, trainers, delivery workers, and platform drivers, fall into the intermediate band and lose rights such as parental leave, redundancy pay, and protection against unfair dismissal. Luke Raikes, deputy general secretary of the Fabian Society, said that if a job looks like employment, companies should treat it as employment by default and expect enforcement action if they do not. The government's official analysis estimates that the changes envisaged in its employment rights bill will cost businesses between £350 million and £2.9 billion. A government spokesperson responded that the government will consult on employment status and assess how the agency uses its civil litigation powers.
The consultation the government has committed to opening on employment status will determine whether the Fair Work Agency actively litigates against platforms, a decision that regulators across the region are watching. For Mexico, the case establishes a pattern: the classification of app-based workers is a regulatory frontier open across multiple jurisdictions.
This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.