Sweeping up decent work: paid domestic work and digital platforms in South Africa

Plataformas digitales y formalización laboral. El trabajo doméstico remunerado en Argentina durante la pandemia

“…Primero, la institucionalización del proceso de reclutamiento y del pago de salarios a través de medios electrónicos o bancarización parece asociarse con la formalización del trabajo doméstico remunerado Tandon & Rathi, 2022). Segundo, la posibilidad de registrar en la aplicación el número de horas trabajadas otorga previsibilidad a las remuneraciones (Hunt & Machingura, 2016;Sibiya & Du Toit, 2022). Tercero, la información acerca de las regulaciones laborales, del acceso a la seguridad social o a seguros específicos, acompaña los reclamos de las trabajadoras domésticas, al mismo tiempo que informa a los empleadores sobre sus obligaciones (Cebollada Gay, 2021).…”

The ‘Platformisation’ of Domestic Work in South Africa

“…This exclusion of platform domestic workers from legislated employment and social security protections due to their vague employment status on the platform is an issue that is of crucial concern (Sibiya and Du Toit, 2022;Hunt and Machingura, 2016). South Africa has one of the most extensive labour rights and protections for domestic workers, including independent domestic workers and those in part time work through Sectoral Determination 7 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA), but in this new triangular platform domestic work employment model, these are rendered mostly unattainable for platform domestic workers.…”

“…As already stated, the SweepSouth platform allows for the instant matching of domestic workers with customers in need of their services. It has therefore proven itself to be a large-scale job creator in the domestic sector because it is providing workers easy and instant access to a large pool of customers in need of domestic cleaning services (Sibiya and Du Toit, 2022). It is not surprising then that platform domestic workers interviewed cited unemployment and the easy access to a reliable supply of work opportunities on the platform to be the main reason for joining the SweepSouth platform: Of the ten platform domestic workers interviewed, six had prior experience as informal domestic workers in private households before joining the platform while the rest were new entrants to the domestic sector through the platform.…”

“…Platform domestic work as a new work model in the sector is indeed an effective provider of work opportunities for many domestic workers and is attempting to offer above-minimum wage payment rates on its platform (Sibiya and Du Toit, 2022;The Fairwork Project South Africa, 2022). However, it is the quality of work that is an issue on the platform.…”

Platform labour in contexts of high informality: Any improvement for workers? A critical assessment based on the case of Argentina

“…This seems to be the case in the domestic service sector platform analysed here. Although many studies on digital platforms for domestic services have found the deepening of the precarious labour conditions of the activity (Modroño et al, 2022; Sedacca, 2022; Wandile & du Toit, 2022), platforms' business models are heterogeneous and many have been assessed as beneficial to workers. Successful practices include selling services associated to the formalisation of contracts (like Zolvers in this article), or hiring waged workers directly dependant on the platform, or via workers managing platforms in the form of cooperatives (see Azzellini et al, 2022; Blanchard, 2023; Cannon et al, 2020; DFS, 2021; Kasparian et al, 2021, among others).…”