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Those working on digital platforms do not yet have vacations, sick leave and other social guarantees. Trends asked departments, experts and market participants how to fix this and regulate platform employment in our country
Option 1: recognize everyone as employees and give mandatory guarantees
Option 2: soft regulation and social guarantees on a voluntary basis
Option 3: do nothing and keep workers self-employed
Platform employment is a flexible format for including workers in the labor market. It involves the use of a digital platform that acts as an intermediary between service providers or performers and their customers. Such employment can be both primary and secondary for the employee.
Looking for a model
Platform employment is a relatively new segment, and there are no precise definitions or legal frameworks for it yet. Therefore, it is now impossible to accurately estimate the number of people working here – couriers, tutors, drivers, IT specialists and other specialists. But experts expect that by 2030 digital platforms will provide jobs from 6-8 million to 15 million of our countries.
But how exactly to regulate this segment is not entirely clear. Various options are offered. The most conservative of them is to make all employees full-time employees with the appropriate set of rights and guarantees. And the most liberal one is not to change anything and limit itself to the institution of the self-employed. However, any extreme carries its own serious risks, and most experts are inclined to an intermediate option.
Option 1: recognize everyone as employees and give mandatory guarantees
Oleg Sokolov, Secretary of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of our country, Head of the Department of Social and Labor Relations and Social Partnership of the FNPR:
“FNPR believes that if there are several signs of labor relations, any civil law, informal and other relations should be recognized as labor relations. In the case of platform employment, such signs are, for example, the personal performance of a certain labor function in the profession for a fee, as well as compliance with the rules established in platform organizations, work schedules (for example, time limits for taxi drivers), and so on.
Thus, according to the FNPR, the rights and obligations of employers established by the Labor Code of the Russian Federation should be extended to the platforms. Accordingly, those employed on the platforms should be recognized as employees with all rights and obligations.
In our country, there is no developed culture, as well as often the necessary level of income for independent social investment – the accumulation of pension savings, comprehensive insurance.
Therefore, the approach when the employed through digital platforms are invited to decide for themselves whether to save money for retirement, how to protect themselves during the period of illness and other life troubles, will eventually lead to an increase in social tension and even, possibly, to a serious socio-economic catastrophe.
Alexander Shcherbakov, Doctor of Economics, Professor of the Department of Labor and Social Policy of the Institute of Public Administration and Management (IGSU) of the RANEPA:
“I think that it is necessary to provide those employed on the platforms with social guarantees, and social security should be mandatory in accordance with the procedure established by Russian laws. That is, at the expense of companies (the owners of the platform) and the state, which, I remind you, is responsible for its citizens.
The issue of obligation can only be discussed in connection with unemployment benefits. But not for those who get a job through the platform (these people should be provided for in the usual way), but for those who use it to produce products, works or services for sale.
Such an approach, in my opinion, will contribute to the development of platform employment, the labor market and the economy as a whole, since it will make such employment more socially protected, more orderly and, therefore, more attractive both in terms of labor supply and in terms of demand for it.”
Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of our country:
“First of all, it is necessary to clearly understand that the platform itself is not a source of employment, but acts as a link between its users. Service providers ordered through digital platforms can be both citizens working under labor contracts (for example, employees of courier companies) and self-employed entrepreneurs.
The majority of citizens employed through digital ecosystems, according to surveys, are self-employed. At the same time, self-employment is a tax regime. And the relationships themselves, which are formed with the assistance of platforms, are not labor relations, since consumers of services do not act as employers.
In the international field, there is no universal approach to regulating relations arising from interaction with Internet platforms. The Ministry of Labor is now discussing the best solution to this issue in order to provide an opportunity to provide a social package for workers, and on the other hand, not to create obstacles for the development of digital platforms that have become widespread thanks to work with the self-employed.”
Oksana Sinyavskaya, Head of the Center for Comprehensive Social Policy Research, Institute for Social Policy, National Research University Higher School of Economics:
“It seems to me important that this new form of employment should be recognized at the legislative level. At the same time, it is obvious that these are not employment relationships, and extending the entire package of social guarantees to platform employment means killing the sector of the economy that currently creates jobs, provides income for many vulnerable categories of employed, including bringing some types of employment out of the shadows. services.
I see soft regulation and expansion of opportunities for voluntary insurance of certain risks while maintaining the legal status of self-employment as the optimal solution. People working through platforms seem to need a regulation of working hours – but not as rigid as in the format of employment relationships. Rather, it is about avoiding excessively long working hours that lead to exhaustion, reduced productivity, poor health, and increased risk of injury. They also need paid downtime – in case of illness or vacation.
I believe that all social guarantees at first should be provided exclusively on a voluntary basis. At the same time, priority in the social package should be given to people for whom platform employment is the only and complete one. The initiative to participate in such voluntary formats may come from the self-employed themselves or from platforms. Moreover, platforms are already trying to insure professional risks, regulate overtime issues and, less often, offer some kind of insurance mechanisms in case of illness.
The state can encourage the self-employed to participate in voluntary social products by creating attractive conditions for social packages, conducting a wide information campaign, organizing – perhaps together with platforms – educational programs. One of the tools to promote this direction of development can be economic incentives for platforms that form mechanisms for the voluntary inclusion of employees employed on them in risk insurance programs and qualification growth programs.
Liberal option (leave everyone self-employed or individual entrepreneurs without social guarantees. – Trends) retains risks for both employees (income instability, insecurity during periods of forced downtime) and platforms (risk of recognition of employment). Excessive regulation of the sector, that is, the automatic distribution to this segment of employment of all social guarantees with the appropriate amount of payments inherent in the field of traditional employment, will cause serious damage to the platform economy and create a real threat to the existence of this segment.”
Anna Osharova, head of the Avito Podrabotka project:
“Of course, there should be regulation, but the format of regulation and support must be developed in close dialogue with business. The unit economy of platform projects will simply cease to converge if you impose on them all the same responsibilities as classic employers. And it won’t help anyone.
Now people are using platforms because they can’t secure the level of income they need from the current classics. It is unnecessary to regulate the platforms – in fact, to close them and close the opportunity for people to provide themselves with a better life.
I think the platforms will inevitably come to some additional social incentives for performers against the backdrop of competition with each other, as part of the struggle for the performer. But you need to give them time so that they can develop, so that they have the opportunity, time and money for this.”
Tatyana Nechaeva, lawyer and labor law expert at hh.ru:
“The best option seems to be a soft regulation of platform employment, which is characterized by low barriers to entry, flexible schedules, voluntary medical and social insurance. With this option, offers from customers become more accessible for low-mobility categories of performers, people with disabilities, and even for people without experience in this area, as the platform becomes a conduit between customer offers and the capabilities of performers.
I believe that the platform representative should inform the contractor about the possibilities of voluntary insurance. It should not be mandatory, it should be the choice of each participant in this type of employment. Platform workers should be seen as their partners in offering services within the ecosystem created by the platforms. And the partner, in turn, acting on an equal footing with the customer of services, can independently make decisions about the need for insurance.”
Anton Petrakov, director of corporate relations and relations with government agencies, Yandex Go (includes taxi services, Yandex.Food, Yandex.Lavka):
“We are in dialogue with all key departments to develop balanced regulation, since thanks to the digitalization processes in the economy, new forms of relationships have appeared – this is the relationship between IT platforms that provide opportunities for searching for orders, and those who fulfill these orders. Of course, these new forms of employment must be studied and regulated on a case-by-case basis. The self-employed, like everyone who collaborates with the platforms, are independent entrepreneurs and independently determine how to manage their earnings and what percentage of it should go to insurance premiums. In our opinion, the role of platforms in this matter is to create the most comfortable conditions for partners by developing their own support programs. So, for example, we launched a program of preferential insurance for taxi drivers and couriers, which includes, among other things, analogues of “sick leave”. But the decision to participate in the program remains with our partners.”
Denis Kutergin, co-founder of YouDo.com online services:
“When developing regulation, it is important to maintain a balance of interests. The model, when self-employment remains within the framework of civil law relations, and platforms help reduce risks through optional products, is the most effective.
It is often said that the self-employed are not protected, they have no support. But you need to pay attention to another problem. There are 2,4 million officially registered self-employed in the country, while people who are still in shadow employment are many times more. And those who do not register their activities have much more risks: from the impossibility of pension contributions to the risks of complete non-payment by the company.
We see that the shadow zone has begun to gradually transform, as the number of self-employed is growing.
This is happening in parallel with how many companies are realizing the benefits of working with the self-employed: it’s legal, but also cheaper and safer.
Anastasia Uskova, CEO of the Rocket Work platform:
“No one forbids the self-employed to take out health insurance for themselves and make contributions on a par with individual entrepreneurs to accumulate seniority and pensions, so the changes here seem like an unnecessary superstructure to us. In addition, if the responsibility for pensions and social insurance is shifted to the shoulders of aggregators, this will inevitably lead to an increase in staff costs, taxation will increase, and in the end it will be the users who will pay for the services, for which the cost of services will rise. And the self-employed themselves most likely will not be happy with this, since with a high probability additional expenses from the services will lead to an increase in internal commissions for them.
In an ideal world, the state, which after all is the main beneficiary of the whitewashing of the private services sector, could subsidize pensions and insurance for the self-employed. Recall that in our country more than 22% of GDP is an invisible economy. These are trillions of rubles. Some of them are just the sphere of private services: taxi drivers, couriers, tutors and all kinds of craftsmen: at least for repairs, even for manicures. Since the start of the experiment in 2019, self-employment has taken ₽327 billion of income out of the gray zone, and the budget has received ₽8 billion in taxes.
Now there are more than 2,5 million officially self-employed in the country, the plan of the Ministry of Finance is to increase at least four times in the next decade in the number of self-employed, and hence in tax collection. And for this, it is necessary to make the [special tax] NAP regime more popular. Partial compensation of PFR and social insurance contributions is an excellent tool.
The self-employed are needed by platforms – they keep their business. To retain them and increase their loyalty, as well as to promote cooperation, aggregators can think over a system of compensation for vacation and sick leave, but this must be done on a voluntary basis.
A reasonable division of responsibilities for social guarantees between business and the state will not lead to excessive costs for businesses, an increase in commissions for contractors and an increase in the cost of their services for end consumers, and will lead to an increase in the popularity of the NAP regime, whitewash the sector, and solve the problem of sagging due to coronavirus and outflow SME employment. Everyone is happy.”
Option 3: do nothing and keep workers self-employed
Alexander Laryanovsky, Skyeng Managing Partner:
“In our opinion, self-employment is the right and modern option. And the self-employed should be given the same rights as individual entrepreneurs.
It is necessary to increase the limits on the turnover of funds for the self-employed and equate them with the limits on the turnover of individual entrepreneurs. In addition, taxation should become transactional, and the customer should have the opportunity, but not the obligation, to act as the tax agent of the contractor when paying this transactional tax.
Self-employed citizens, for many of whom such income is not the main one, should be able to independently and voluntarily form or not form their insurance coverage through public or private instruments. The self-employed citizen must immediately include the costs of social protection in the cost of the services provided to him.
At the same time, of course, for some industries associated with professional risk (for example, couriers, drivers, workers, builders), their own industry standards may be provided.
Delivery Club:
“Certainly, in classical employment, both the company and the employee themselves pay much more contributions (than in platform employment. — Trends). We are talking about the format of cooperation between the company and the couriers, which is based on the courier’s complete freedom of action and maximum flexibility. A person can leave a request, start delivering food the next day, and then turn in the uniform at any time and stop working with us without two weeks of work. For example, this was the case during the 2020 lockdown, when delivery became a way for thousands of people to earn extra money while their companies were closed.
Possible regulation of platform employment should take into account the specifics of specific industries. For the vast majority of couriers, food delivery becomes a temporary solution for a maximum of several months or a way to earn extra money in their free time from their main job. So the use of the institution of self-employment in our case is fully consistent with the very essence of this activity.”
Tatyana Borzykh, General Director of Dostavista our country:
“We believe that social guarantees should depend on the specifics of the business and the platform. It is not clear who exactly can pay for the vacation of self-employed Ivan Ivanovich, who has registered on two different platforms and can deliver parcels to Dostavista customers one day, and repair household appliances the next day.
A self-employed citizen can cancel his status and join the staff, for example, of a classic courier company, in order to receive social guarantees. At the same time, he can remain self-employed and deliver orders whenever he wants, paying as little as 6% in taxes. In this case, he cannot claim social guarantees from the platform on which he has registered.
The most conservative scenario (recognize all full-time employees with the appropriate scope of rights and guarantees. — Trends) can lead to the rapid growth of shadow business, “gray” and “black” salaries: not all companies may be interested in expanding staff and increasing wage funds.
We see that the employment market offers contractors various options: work in the staff of a courier company or any other company on the basis of an employment contract and according to the work schedule, or self-employment through registration on the platform. The choice is up to the performer.