Date and Time: March 20, 1PM – 2:30PM Bangkok time (UTC+7)
Room: Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 827 2198 8695
Passcode: 949475
Description:
Across the Asia-Pacific, gig workers employed by digital platforms are increasingly vulnerable to rights abuses, often hired without the benefits and protections offered by more traditional employment, facing constant job precarity due to unpredictable algorithms and ratings, and with limited recourse to enforce their right to decent work. The Philippines alone has seen recent cases where workers can be dismissed for speaking out against unjust labor practices, and potentially replaced amidst the rise of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence.
How do we protect the rights of gig workers amidst existing and emerging technology? What responsibility do digital platforms have in ensuring fair labor practices? How should labor laws in the Philippines and other countries in Asia evolve to recognize and protect gig workers’ rights?
This edition of the DRAPAC Series highlights the experience of labor groups in the Philippines and elsewhere in their call for private sector accountability and policy reform.
This edition of the DRAPAC Series is in collaboration with the Association for Progressive Communications, the Foundation for Media Alternatives, and the Computer Professionals’ Union of the Philippines.
Guest speakers:
Kim Cantillas is an advocate of Digital Justice and Information Security. Before dedicating their time to advocacy work, they worked in the IT industry as a Software Quality Assurance Engineer for 4 years. They are the current chairperson of the Computer Professionals’ Union (CPU).
Nandini Chami is part of the leadership team at IT for Change. For over a decade, she has been engaged in research and policy advocacy on the intersections of the digital paradigm with development justice, together with her colleagues. Her key areas of interest are exploring pathways to feminist futures of work and alternative digital economy models grounded in social and solidarity economy traditions.
Renso Bajala is a BPO Worker, the Secretary General of the BPO Industry Employees Network or BIEN Philippines, Gender and Programme Officer of BE GLAD and CODE AI Convenor.
Kian Balmadres is a media correspondent of pro-labor media institution Mayday Multimedia based in the Philippines. He currently heads Riders Watch, Mayday’s program focused on the labor rights of platform riders. From 2022 to 2024, he also served as the Education and Research Head of the Institute for Nationalist Studies (INS), a research organization led by Filipino youth and students.
