Platform workers raise concerns on costs, earnings pressure at dialogue session

RISING costs and falling earnings were top of mind for ride-hailing drivers and delivery riders who attended a platform worker dialogue session on Friday (Feb 3).

This comes as Singapore is set to roll out stronger job protections for these gig economy workers, including Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions and work injury coverage.

Held at HomeTeam NS Balestier, the dialogue was helmed by Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng and attended by some 120 platform workers. The other panellists were Senior Minister of State for Manpower Koh Poh Koon, National Trades Union Congress Secretary-General Ng Chee Meng and Yeo Wan Ling, who advises the platform worker associations.

During the dialogue, several workers raised fears about whether the new protections would result in higher costs for the platforms, which would then be passed on to the workers.

“I hope that it will not be the costs all (passed) over to us (but) it will be spread across consumers, platforms and ourselves,” one worker said.

“At the end of the day, if you just ‘say only’ and when you implement, the costs come back to us – we are the ones paying the 17 per cent,” he said, referring to the prevailing 17 per cent rate for employer contributions to the CPF scheme. “We don’t want that to happen.”

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Another worker alleged that the payment rate of one of the platforms has been decreasing since the announcement of the measures, and asked: “How can the government ensure that platforms eventually don’t give us the burden?”

As announced last November, Singapore will mandate CPF contributions for platform workers aged below 30 when the rule kicks in, while also introducing work injury compensation that has the same scope of coverage as employees. These measures, which were recommended by the Advisory Committee on Platform Workers, will be introduced in late 2024 or thereafter.

Responding to the workers’ concerns, Dr Koh said that in a functioning market, if all costs are passed to workers alone, the workers would eventually leave to work for competitors. Rather, the “true nature of the market” is that any costs that the company takes on will eventually be passed on to customers.

“All the surveys we have done showed that Singaporeans are prepared to pay up to 10 per cent more to support all of you,” Dr Koh said.

On the alleged fall in payments rate, he added: “That’s how the gig economy moves and that highlights how precarious it is. Today you think you earn more, and tomorrow, suddenly, you earn very little.

“And that is why because of the uncertain nature of this work the committee landed on making sure that you have long-term housing adequacy (and) retirement adequacy to make sure that no matter how the company (does) – well or badly – they must still pay you your CPF.”

Separately, in his opening speech to workers at the dialogue, Dr Tan acknowledged that concerns have surfaced about a drop in take-home earnings with mandatory CPF contributions.

“The government will step forward with support. We are still studying how best to provide support to platform workers who require more assistance, to reduce the impact on their take-home pay during this transition period,” he said, adding that more details will be announced when ready.

Dr Tan also announced at Friday’s session that the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has formed a new committee to plan and implement a work injury compensation framework for platform workers.

Called the Platform Workers Work Injury Compensation Network (PWIN), it comprises tripartite partners, six insurers and 13 platform companies (see list below).

Key issues that the PWIN will look into include the process for reporting work injuries, how to determine platform workers’ earnings to compute income loss compensation, and claims processing in exceptional cases where the worker was injured while serving multiple platforms.

The group will also iron out operational processes required to support claims processing and dispute resolution.

Under the recommendations of the Advisory Committee, platform companies will be required to insure the workers to the same level that employees are covered under the Work Injury Compensation Act. The coverage will be based not just on earnings from a single platform, but all the platforms the worker serves in the sector.

The composition of the PWIN is as follows:

Tripartite Partners

• Singapore National Employers Federation

• NTUC (National Taxi Association, National Private Hire Vehicles Association and National Delivery Champions Association)

Insurers

• Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Company

• Chubb Insurance Singapore Limited

• Etiqa Insurance Private Limited

• Great Eastern General Insurance Limited

• Income Insurance Limited

• Singapore Life Limited

Companies

• ComfortDelGro

• Gojek

• Grab Singapore

• Ryde

• Tada

• Amazon

• Deliveroo

• foodpanda

• GoGoX

• Lalamove

• Pickupp

• Teleport

• uParcel