[Looking forward to new solutions for protecting workers’ rights and interests in the digital era] In the digital era, how to “fairly quantify” labor remuneration?
"Takeaway boys" are included in the minimum wage guarantee, can receive higher work remuneration on legal holidays, and guide companies to scientifically determine their workload... Not long ago, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security issued three documents to protect the rights and interests of workers in new employment forms. Hubei SF Express Representative Wang Yong, Jianghan branch manager of Express Co., Ltd., is particularly concerned about the part about labor remuneration: "The remuneration of workers in the new employment form is closely related to the algorithm mechanism of the platform's performance appraisal."
Digitization has changed the way workers work, and it has also changed the rules for labor compensation measurement and performance appraisal.
In the digital age, how to “fairly quantify” labor remuneration?
Many representatives and committee members brought their own thoughts.
Breaking the “shadowing effect” of digital performance appraisal
After visiting a number of local manufacturing companies, Representative Cheng Ping, Secretary and Director of the Party Branch of Shandong Wenkang (Linyi) Law Firm, was surprised to find that in the past, performance appraisals on the production line were mostly based on paper records, and it was clear at a glance how much work the workers had done in a day. .
Nowadays, the "digital brain" of enterprises can clearly present real-time data such as the hourly output of each process and each production line, and the completion rate of the production plan. However, many workshop workers are still "confused" about the rules of performance appraisal: Production How are data related to workers’ wages?
"Performance appraisal rules cannot be reduced to a line of code or a set of numbers because of the intervention of digitalization." Representative Cheng Ping's research notes contain this line of red records: "In the digital age, to protect workers' rights and interests in labor remuneration, we must Start with the rules that regulate performance appraisal.”
"We need to make the platform performance appraisal rules fairer and more transparent." Representative Zhao Zhenxiang, housekeeping business manager of Lanzhou New District Commercial Investment Group Blue Shield Industrial Company, noticed that in the wave of resumption of work after the Spring Festival this year, more and more housekeeping workers have joined The "service army" dispatched by the platform.
"Fees will be deducted for negative reviews, stars will be reduced for rejected orders...Performance appraisal rules are hidden in platform rules that often contain tens of thousands of words, causing the legitimate rights and interests of some housekeepers to be 'suspended' without paying attention." Representative Zhao Zhenxiang suggested that in In the digital age of "machine OEM" and "platform employment", the rules of performance appraisal should be presented to workers in a more direct and intuitive way to protect workers' right to know.
To break the “algorithm black box” requires legislation and supervision
"Performance assessment methods driven by platform algorithms may not bring about the 'optimal solution' to labor remuneration rights, but safeguarding the interests of workers and promoting fair income distribution should be important considerations in designing algorithms." In 2023, I am hungry. The country’s first network-wide collective contract for food delivery platform companies signed by Mo has attracted the attention of Commissioner Zhang Yi, senior partner of King & Wood Mallesons.
This agreement, which integrates the voices of Ele.me’s own employees and more than 3 million delivery boys at 11,000 delivery sites across the country, promotes the standard of basic delivery fees for delivery boys and the local consumer price index, delivery distance, dining peak, etc. The factors are directly related and directly hit the "pain points" of the algorithm.
"Eliminating the 'algorithm black box' requires both legislation and supervision." Member Zhang Yi believes that in terms of algorithm governance in the labor field, algorithms should be promoted to incorporate the reasonable demands of workers, and artificial intelligence can also be explored to supervise artificial intelligence. Empowering algorithmic supervision with digital technology.
Two years ago, JD Group and JD Logistics registered a collective contract with the Beijing Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Department, covering approximately 318,000 employees.
"Employers have the responsibility and obligation to listen to the voices of workers." Cao Peng, chairman of the JD Group's technical committee, said that more humane algorithms are becoming an important way to attract workers to find jobs.
“Integrating algorithms into the institutional framework”
Representative Hou Yanmei, sanitation project manager of Jiahaojia (Fujian) Ecological Environment Technology Co., Ltd., noticed that in the platform-based employment of some sanitation companies, the statutory high temperature allowance paid by traditional sanitation companies in the form of wages was replaced by "working hours reward" and "offset". "Individual rewards" rather than being distributed directly to each sanitation worker.
In her view, some workers' legal rights and interests are easily ignored after the employment pattern has been changed, and new optimization plans are urgently needed.
"If algorithms are the norms in the digital world, then the algorithms themselves also need to be standardized. They cannot be allowed to grow wildly in the invisible online world, but should be placed under the constraints of real laws." Director of Guizhou Guida Law Firm , representative Zhu Shan, senior partner, believes that the "Guiding Opinions on Safeguarding Labor Security Rights and Interests of Workers in New Employment Forms" jointly issued by 8 departments previously provided a legal path for "installing algorithms into the framework of the system."
Representative Zhu Shan suggested that platform algorithms should be regarded as labor regulations, and the algorithms should be regulated from aspects such as the compliance of the content of the algorithm rules and the democracy of the algorithm formulation process, so as to promote the protection mechanism of workers' rights and interests and the regulation of artificial intelligence in the digital era. Achieve two-way mutual embedding, penetration and integration, and related collaboration.
(This newspaper, Beijing, March 8)
Li Runzhao Han Yunchao