Can new regulations make gig work a viable job?

British Columbia is introducing regulations that the province says will improve the lives of gig workers who deliver meals and offer rideshares—including a minimum wage while working and safe work protections among other things. Other regulations have slowly been introduced around the world.

Valerio De Stefano is the Canada Research Chair in Innovation in Law and Society at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. “What [BC’s] going to do is not to say ‘these people are employees, so they get all the protections that employees get’, no, these people are being ghettoed in a distinct category with some protection, but not all the protections that employees will get,” says De Stefano.

How much do these protections actually help workers? Will the companies that pay them pass the prices along to consumers, or leave these jurisdictions altogether? As more and more jobs shift to this kind of work, what needs to be done to ensure workers can actually make a living doing it?

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