Working papers

2023

  1. ILO Working paper 86

    Negotiations by workers in the informal economy

    04 January 2023

    This paper provides empirical evidence from Africa, Asia and the Americas on negotiations and collective bargaining by workers in the informal economy.

2022

  1. ILO Working paper 80

    Realizing the opportunities of the platform economy through freedom of association and collective bargaining

    30 September 2022

    This study provides empirical evidence from different regions of the world to identify avenues for platform economy workers to access freedom of association and collective bargaining.

  2. ILO Working paper 62

    Protection of workers’ personal data: General principles

    05 May 2022

    This working paper gives an overview of legal standards related to personal data protection. It explores trends, principles and good practices and brings them in relation to the world of work.

2021

  1. ILO Working paper 27

    Platform work and the employment relationship

    31 March 2021

    This working paper analyses national and supranational case law and legislation about the employment status of platform workers. It does so by referring to the ILO Employment Relationship Recommendation, 2006 (No. 198). It finds that this Recommendation provides for a valuable compass to navigate the issues that emerge from the analysis of the existing case law and legislation about platform work.

  2. ILO Working paper 25

    Homeworking in the Philippines: Bad job ? Good job ?

    09 March 2021

    This report focuses on two categories of homeworkers in the Philippines: industrial homeworkers, who assemble or fabricate goods for factories, retailers or their agents under subcontracting arrangements; and online workers, who render services to their clients or employers via telecommunications technologies and digital platforms.

  3. ILO Working paper 24

    Online digital labour platforms in China: Working conditions, policy issues and prospects

    02 February 2021

    This paper summarizes the results of an ILO survey, conducted in 2019, of workers’ characteristics and working conditions on three major digital labour platforms in China.

  4. ILO Working paper 22

    Home-based work and homework in Ghana: An exploration

    22 January 2021

    This research report explores the nature and character of home-based work and the more narrow concept of homework in Ghana.

2020

  1. ILO Working paper 21

    Home bounded - Global outreach: Home-based workers in Turkey

    18 December 2020

    This report focuses on industrial home-based pieceworkers and IT-enabled remote workers, who are commonly referred to in Turkey as “freelancers”.

  2. ILO Working paper 5

    Population Ageing: Alternative measures of dependency and implications for the future of work

    08 June 2020

    This paper examines the projected labour force participation trends of older workers to 2030 and discusses the future of economic dependency for developing, emerging and developed countries.

  3. ILO Working Paper 4

    The regulation of collective dismissals: Economic rationale and legal practice

    19 May 2020

    This paper offers a legal and an economic analysis of collective dismissals procedures.

  4. ILO Working paper 1

    "System needs update":Upgrading protection against cyberbullying and ICT-enabled violence and harassment in the world of work

    13 February 2020

    The term ‘cyberbullying’ has been used to describe aggressive conducts carried out through information and communication technologies (ICT), and can involve picture/video clips, emails, or social network sites, among others.

2019

  1. Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 106

    Regulatory options for conflicts of law and jurisdictional issues in the on-demand economy

    08 July 2019

    Provides a global framework for thinking about the on-demand business model and assorted conflicts of law and jurisdictional issues.

  2. Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 104

    Overtime work: A review of literature and initial empirical analysis

    18 January 2019

    An inter-disciplinary overview on how overtime issues are addressed by different academic disciplines. Examines the incidence of overtime work within the context of several distinct national employment regimes and industrial relations systems.

2018

  1. Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 105

    An analysis of multiparty bargaining models for global supply chains

    20 December 2018

    Reviews one approach for realizing the goal of improving labour standards at the lower rungs of supply chains that has to date received relatively little scholarly attention: substantive, enforceable agreements between lead firms and unions or worker-based organizations.

  2. Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 97

    Multi-employer collective bargaining in South Africa

    12 June 2018

    In South Africa, collective bargaining operates at multiple levels. The main distinction to draw is between single-employer bargaining and multi-employer bargaining.

  3. Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 103

    On-call work in the Netherlands: trends, impact, and policy solutions

    23 April 2018

    Flexible work has steadily increased in the Dutch labour market and on-call employment represents the fastest growing group. Although on-call work is both the largest and the least institutionally regulated form of flexible employment, little is known on its developments and impacts.

  4. Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102

    On-call and related forms of casual work in New Zealand and Australia

    23 April 2018

  5. Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 101

    Zero-Hours Work in the United Kingdom

    06 April 2018

  6. Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 95

    Conceptualizing the role of intermediaries in formalizing domestic work

    04 April 2018

  7. Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 94

    Organizing On-Demand: Representation, Voice, and Collective Bargaining in the Gig Economy

    29 March 2018