Regulating platform delivery work in Argentina.

POBLETE, LORENA

Magog (virtual)

Congreso; MAGOG CONFERENCE; 2021

CRIMT Partnership project

Although delivery workers gain presence in the labor market since 2018, when most of the delivery platform established in Argentina, their presence became more significant during the lockdown because their work guarantees the access to all kinds of supplies while only essential workers were authorized to work. Thus, the need for a particular regulation for the sector becomes evident. As a result, five draft bills were presented to the Congress between March and November 2020. These draft bills propose different legal frameworks. First, to incorporate platform workers into the general employment regime, since the employee status represents the key to access to all labor and social security rights. Second, it is suggested to establish a special labor regime in order to grant digital platform workers a large part of the rights recognized to employees, but also including special protections more adjusted to this occupation. Third, some bills propose to provide to independent contractors some protections?such as work hazard insurance. Finally, it is proposed a mix regime including the two labor statutes. In all cases, the different draft bills seek to resolve the tension between autonomy and protection. In other words, they propose different ways to articulate the autonomy exercised in determining the working time and, consequently, the autoregulation of the level of income, with protections from social risks.If we put this case of study in the lens of the CRIMT Partnership?s project template to study better or worse forms of work, we could establish that we are observing and analyzing just the T1. T0 includes the growth of the platform delivery work, the formation of workers' unions and the first workers? actions for claiming several protections. T1 is represented by the Covid-19 pandemic crises, when delivery workers are conceived as one of the most essential workers and we observe a proliferation of legislative proposals. T2 will include the approval and the implementation of the new legal framework.Considering economic and social risks, the draft bills seem to promote more protections for delivery workers. Regarding the autonomy and control of work, delivery work shows a constant tension between the possibility to exercise the autonomy concerning working conditions and the digital mechanisms to control the labor process. The third dimension?expressiveness at work? seem to be circumscribed to collective rights. Several draft bills propose to acknowledge delivery workers the right to collective bargain and unionization.While in some countries, the Covid-19 pandemic crises push to institutional experimentation, in Argentina seems to be the opposite. T1 seems to be a suspended time, in which there are not decisions concerning what is the best legal approach to regulate delivery work.