Adding workers to each application is a challenge

• Billionaires Business: Streaming giant Netflix has bought Warner and HBO Max for $72 billion

The challenge is to organize activities that involve frequent technological innovations. If the model becomes too expensive, the driver will soon be replaced by a self-driving car – as is already happening in China. It is dangerous to legislate based on specific cases, such as private passenger transport in cars. The regulation becomes outdated in the short term: just a few months ago there was no passenger transportation by motorcycle.

• Labor market: Which jobs will boom in the next decade, according to the CEO of the world’s most valuable company?

Regulation should not focus on one type of application. Platforms with more than one service (drivers, deliveries, or ride-hailing bikers) will have one regulated and one unregulated service, and one protected and one unregulated worker. It is unreasonable to issue a new law with every new application. The ideal strategy is a more general organization, including all types of workers, including those belonging to economic sectors that are not yet fully developed. There is a trade-off between detail and comprehensiveness.

As for the legal nature of the occupation, the “CLT versus invasion” opposition is poor and incompetent. This is self-employment that requires social protection that takes into account the risks of the activity and the scale of the digital economy.

The platform must cover the minimum mandatory insurance (from health to repair of work equipment), as well as define its functions taking into account the worker. It must have due process regarding suspensions and exceptions, service channel, and adopt algorithmic transparency standards so that workers can manage their time freely.

It must also bear the majority of the Social Security burden imposed on the worker’s intermittent income (private solutions may be more compatible with this reality). Social protection should start from the small entrepreneur figure created in the tax reform, which provides for a contribution salary of 25% of actual profits. On this basis, there will be a contribution from the worker and one from the platform. It would even be possible to envision other corridors for other activities with lower risks.

It is necessary to ensure that the worker is able to accumulate his contributions to reach the legal minimum, as well as recover more than the maximum contribution. Other issues can be addressed in each segment and will require focused public policies.

Moving away from specific enforcement and short-term solutions, more modern and flexible laws and public policies should promote the social and economic inclusion of a greater number of workers, so that rights are not limited to only those with formal contracts. It is necessary to provide protection for all workers from the present to the future.