The Government is advancing in the study that seeks to regulate more than 700 digital platforms in the country in order to provide better working conditions for the people who provide their services and who in the past held protests demanding better working conditions.
“Regardless of the type of work, how it is generated, where there is a worker there must be a guarantee so that there is no precariousness, which means that there is social security protection”said the Minister of Labor, Gloria Inés Ramírez, quoted in a statement from her office.
The position of the head of the Labor portfolio is known after a meeting, together with her pair of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)Sandra Urrutia Pérez, and representatives of those sectors, who seek to include them in the labor reform.
In the meeting, progress was made in the differentiations that workers of digital platforms have, among which are companies such as Rappi, the studies that are being prepared around the five central elements for the labor reform in this industry, such as the principle of favorable employment, what it means to be an independent worker, self-employed or with an employment relationship and the characterization of this sector.
Minister Urrutia assured that it is a debt that is owed to the country: “It is the golden moment to agree, to be able to bring a proposal and have a regulatory framework that leads to this progress because digital issues are the future and the present.”
In past years, the distributors who provide their services to platforms such as Rappi made several protests, which included burning their backpacks in front of that company’s offices to demand better working conditions and that the company take responsibility for their health in the event of an accident.
Rappi, which was born in 2015 in Colombia as a home delivery “startup”, is currently a multi-use service platform that also has operations in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.
Last August, the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, announced that the labor reform would be presented this year but before that it would be discussed with businessmen and workers with the intention of reaching the “improvement of the work environment”.
The reform seeks improvements for workers such as the payment of night hours starting at six in the afternoon, salary equality between men and women, termination of service provision contracts and more stability in the jobs, among other issues. .
Initially, the head of state had said that he was going to present the reform last year, but he focused his efforts on the tax reform that, After much back and forth, it was approved.