STPS will promote a special chapter in the LFT for 500,000 digital platform workers

In the construction of the proposed amendment to the Federal Labor Law (LFT), for the approximately 500,000 digital platform workers, the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS) proposes including a special chapter for this new form of work in which priority is given to labor flexibility.

According to what was stated by the head of Labor, Luisa María Alcalde Luján, to the legislators of the Chamber of Deputies, it is urgent that there be a proposal to reform the LFT to have a special chapter for platform workers.

Said chapter must consider aspects such as the possibility that each worker has compulsory social security and that the workers be recognized as subordinate workers, and not as partners.

“There is a gigantic opportunity, that the necessary balance can be found so that the industry survives, but so that the workers are protected. What is it that we have been proposing? are recognized as workers, but, with the necessary flexibility to understand how this industry works; that they are different employers, I can be working with a platform with two, with three, at the same time, as each one fulfills its responsibility before the social security institutions, ”explained the Secretary.

In this sense, the president of the Labor and Social Welfare Commission (STPS), Jesús Baldenebro, met with various digital platform groups who prepared the Minimum Floor Manifesto for Digital Platform Workers.

The legislator admitted that this sector requires legislation that is consistent with the trend in the world, since they must have the minimum recognition as workers.

It should be noted that the International Labor Organization (ILO) has recommended in recent studies experimenting with collective bargaining in the economy of digital platforms and identifies countries that have advanced in legal changes such as: Germany, Austria, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Norway, Korea, United Kingdom and Switzerland.

The document, called the Minimum Floor Manifesto for Digital Platform Workers, was presented by groups such as: Yakusa; the Union of Technology Platform Workers of Yucatan (UNTRAPTEY); Wham Cast; Union of Workers of Digital Platforms, Passengers and Food of Mexico (SUTRAM); National Union of Workers by Application (UNTA); Universal Emergency Group (GUE); Drivers for Juárez and CADEM.

In the manifest, it is specified that the workers are considered as such and not as partners, as well as the fact that the labor categories are defined based on the hours of connection time. So they can be temporary, half salary and full salary.

In addition, they specify that the employer will be those natural or legal persons who, through technology platforms and digital applications define the mechanisms for the recruitment of workers.

The document warns that the salary will be set per day, work order, connection time, for tickets sold or per circuit or kilometers traveled. Likewise, it includes the need for the right of reply, in order to know when the company penalizes them, the reasons why it made such a decision.

In this process, said the Secretary of Labor, “all companies have been invited to the debate. All the companies know our position regarding the employment relationship, but we have also been discussing how it is made easier for them and does not create a difficulty”.