ILO approved Convention on work based on digital platforms

On June 12, 2026, at the 114th session of the International Labour Conference, the "Decent Work in the Platform Economy Convention, 2026" was approved. This is the first binding international instrument specifically designed to regulate work through digital platforms.

The Convention applies to any digital platform that, through automated decision-making systems, organizes and/or facilitates work in exchange for remuneration, regardless of the sector of activity. In this sense, it differs from Law No. 20,396 of 2025, which limits its coverage to workers who provide goods delivery and urban passenger transport services.

Compatibility with Uruguayan Regulations

Except for its subjective scope, the Convention is substantially compatible with the Uruguayan framework—including the Constitution of the Republic, Law 20,396, and its Regulatory Decree 145/025—all of which guarantee labor protection regardless of whether the work is performed on an employed (dependent) or self-employed (autonomous) basis.

The main points of convergence between the Convention and national law are:

• Algorithmic transparency: Article 4 of Law 20,396 and Articles 13 to 15 of the Convention align in requiring platforms to provide information on the use of automated monitoring and decision-making systems, granting workers the right to obtain explanations and reviews of decisions that negatively affect them.

• Minimum remuneration: Article 10 of the Convention and Articles 15–16 of Law 20,396 converge to guarantee remuneration that is not lower than the minimum wage, timely and full payment, and the prohibition of deductions related to risks inherent to the activity.

• Social security: Both the Convention (Art. 12) and Law 20,396 (Art. 17) establish coverage for self-employed platform workers under conditions no less favorable than those for other workers in the same category.

The Convention and Law 20,396: Protection Regardless of the Nature of the Employment Relationship

In line with Law 20,396, the Convention guarantees a set of minimum rights to all platform workers (regardless of their employment relationship), which will be analyzed below. Both regulations recognize that, within platform activities, both employment (dependence) and self-employment (autonomy) are legitimate and deserving of special social and labor protections. Therein lies their main merit and their legal novelty.

Consequently, four forms of work are revealed: the traditional forms of employment and self-employment, and the new app-based forms, which also include employment and enhanced self-employment. We compare them below:

The chart dismantles the narrative that autonomy equates to a lack of protection. On the contrary, under Law 20,396, the worker designated as "self-employed" enjoys protections regarding algorithmic transparency, rights to explanation, reputational protection, guarantees regarding tools, and access to collective rights—protections that an employed worker hired outside the app ecosystem does not have. We are not dealing with unprotected work, but rather with work that is protected in a different and specific manner.

The Convention solidifies exactly this same model at the international level: effective protection for all platform workers, regardless of the legal nature of the employment relationship. This confirms that the platform "self-employed" worker is not the traditional unprotected self-employed individual, but rather a new category with its own distinct legal status.

By guaranteeing minimum rights to all platform workers regardless of the nature of their relationship, the Convention confirms that the "all-or-nothing" paradigm (either an employed worker with full rights, or a self-employed worker with no protections) has been superseded on the international stage.

The Question of Employment Status

The new standard does not establish any presumption of subordination or autonomy in favor of the platform worker. Classification must be carried out on a case-by-case basis, paying attention to the specific facts and the distinct characteristics of platform work (Art. 9).

This solution complements the one established in Article 13 of Law 20,396, which expressly states that the adoption of the conditions provided therein "shall not constitute indications of employment status nor of autonomy." Article 19 of the Convention validates this approach by establishing that the conditions of employment or contracting "shall be governed preferably by the legislation of the country in which the work is performed."

Furthermore, the Convention makes no reference to the Employment Relationship Recommendation, 2006 (No. 198), nor does it incorporate its catalog of indicators as a binding standard for classifying the relationship. This omission is deliberate and takes on particular relevance in light of the practice of part of the Uruguayan judiciary, which has been relying on the indicators of Recommendation 198 as if they were binding.

Conclusion

Until before February 2025, the debate in Uruguay regarding the legal nature of the relationship between delivery workers/drivers and digital platforms was settled in terms of an mutually exclusive alternative: either the worker was employed (dependent), with the full protections of Labor Law, or they were self-employed (autonomous), governed by Civil and Commercial Law.

This alternative was neither technically sustainable nor socially satisfactory. It was not technical because the way services are actually provided through digital platforms does not fit neatly into either of the two classic categories. And it was not social because it left a group of workers who were formally and even materially self-employed (but economically and technologically dependent on a platform) without minimum social protections, pushing them into a civil regime that was not designed to address their situation.

Moreover, the question of legal classification does not allow for a priori solutions. To argue that all platform workers are employed, regardless of how they provide their services, is just as biased as asserting that they are all self-employed solely because they operate through an app.

In any claim of autonomy or disguised employment status regarding this activity, the response must take into account the 2025 regulating law (No. 20,396) and the rules it establishes (in particular, those arising from Article 13, which limits the possibility of considering certain indicators in favor of one specific modality). Once that analysis is completed, one must look at the facts of each specific case: whether or not the elements of an employment contract are present, in accordance with the principle of the primacy of reality.

This is the path ratified by the Convention approved by the ILO: it validates solutions like Uruguay's legislation and defers to the aforementioned principle, without referring to any previous recommendation.

It is to be hoped that Uruguay will be one of the first countries to ratify it. This would send a very positive signal to the ILO (which has been questioning Uruguay regarding its Wage Councils legislation) and, above all, to the app-based business and labor ecosystem, which would see the regulatory framework governing their activity strengthened.