Tap, swipe, comply

Another Nosy Tarsee riddle: Guess which electronic trading app thinks it is too modern for the rules?

Nosy Tarsee learned that a popular trading app has been telling people who work for it that old labor rules do not apply. The app is digital, you see. No office, time card or boss standing over your desk. So, the thinking goes, no duties to the worker.

Sorry. It does not work that way.

Nosy Tarsee’s little bird says the app uses a team of “partners” to answer customer questions, check accounts and keep the system running. Some work from home. Some work odd hours. All of them do jobs the app needs every single day. Yet when it was time for the 13th month pay, the answer was a shrug and a long email about “contractor status.”

A name on a paper does not decide who an employee is. The work does. If the app tells you when to log in, how to do the task and can send you away when it likes, that sounds like a boss. If the job is part of how the app makes money, that sounds like a regular worker.

The courts have said this before. In recent cases, the labor commission ruled for delivery workers who were let go without a hearing and without warning. It said a company cannot fire first and look for a reason later. It also said that calling a worker “seasonal” or “partner” does not change the facts if the person keeps coming back to work again and again.

Nosy Tarsee asks: If a delivery rider gets these rights, why not a worker behind a trading screen?

An app is only a tool. Behind every button there is a person who is paid, or should be paid, fairly. The law says a worker must get minimum pay, holiday pay, leave pay and the 13th month pay, and that a worker must be told the infraction that he is accused of and be given a chance to answer before being shown the door.

Some of those workers have already asked the labor office for help, which raised a fear that they will be quietly “not renewed” in the app. Nosy Tarsee has seen this before. Ask for what is due, and suddenly the contract ends.

The International Labor Organization has just adopted a global treaty to protect platform workers. It says they should not be mislabeled as “self-employed” just to dodge costs.

New technology is fine. New excuses are not. Pay what is owed, and stop hiding behind a screen.