March 9th 2026, Hyderabad- India, Cape Town- South Africa and New York- USA. The International Alliance of App-based Transport Workers (IAATW) released a new report exposing ways that transport and delivery platform enterprises are evolving to evade new ILO standards. The report reveals how app-based transport workers continue to be locked out of employment rights and standards while the ILO remains over a decade behind in addressing the disruptive effects of the platform economy. 

The latest effort being pursued by the industry is the Software as a Service (SaaS) model, also referred to as the subscription model or a leasing model, which is currently being experimented with in various markets in the Global South. 

Shaik Salauddin, Vice President for IAATW South Asia region said, “This subscription model is spreading across this entire region very fast and some of the giants of the platform economy have already announced that this might be the future of the platform sector. In this model the driver pays the company to subscribe to an app for the time that they want to work, sometimes 6 hours, 12 hours, 1 week, 1 month or even for ₹10,000 worth of bookings. Till now the company paid us for our work, but now we are paying the company to let us work. This business model is not in any way accounted for in the current draft of the convention to be discussed in the ILC 2026.” 

The evolution to a subscription model threatens to permanently exclude workers who were already excluded by ILO standards. Country and segment detail varies, but previous reports by the ILO indicated 154 million people working in the platform economy with the vast majority (between 62 and 82%) working in the transport segment. 

The IAATW’s subscription model report argues that the ILC standard setting process does not account for the new business models emerging in the industry, and coincides with the just released Blue Report of the ILO. The Blue Report reveals a fundamental failure of the ILO to address real work experiences across  the range of contemporary business models, including the subscription model that would leave out millions of workers from coverage by an ILO convention on platform work. Throughout the ILO process, IAATW submitted detailed comments about the emergent subscription and other models that were not taken on board. In spite of full and extensive information being made available to the ILO, the office and other parties involved made an active decision to continue its pursuit of standards that cannot reach millions of platform workers. The result decidedly favours the bosses. 

“Throughout this ILO standard setting process, IAATW and its members have attempted to raise our concerns about constantly changing complexities of these types of emergent problems and the widening gaps in ILO standards. We have been locked out and our concerns dismissed by the ILO. We worry that this entire exercise will only favour the platform enterprises.” said Omar Parker, Secretary General of the National E-Hailing Federation of South Africa (NEFSA) and member of the IAATW Board from sub-Saharan Africa. 

Thus far the Workers’ Group strategy has failed to achieve its objectives. Despite being excluded, IAATW achieved more of its objectives, including ending efforts to make ILO Recommendation 198 binding in the new ILO standards. IAATW reports demonstrated how ILO Recommendation 198 has devastated workers’ rights by ushering in the transformation to platform work. 

In May 2025, IAATW had published a report– App-Mediated Industrial Relations that argued from a global point of view that over 80% of the workers in the platform sector are from the global south and therefore, we need a process that is led by such workers and is not left to unions and leadership from the global north. 

“With just 12 weeks remaining before we gather in Geneva, we urge the labour community, especially the national trade union centres, to engage IAATW affiliates in their respective countries, reassess ground reality and re-strategise our united approach to ILC 2026. Our affiliates are tracking changes on the ground on a daily basis and together we can shape standards that anticipate the future.” said Biju Mathew, President, International Alliance of App-based Transport Workers. 

We remain deeply committed to a unified strategy that could defeat the anti-worker forces that are currently attacking the ILO. 

–End–

Links

IAATW App-mediated Industrial Relations and Regional reports 

IAATW Subscription Model report

For more information and for details on the above reports and beyond: 

board@iaatw.org or call- +91 8851410590