At the final vote on 13 June, something remarkable happened in the assembly hall in Geneva. Delegates from 187 countries representing vastly different political systems, economic approaches and cultural traditions raised their hands in unanimous agreement and the 113th International Labour Conference approved the development of the world’s first comprehensive protections for the many people whose work depends on digital labour platforms. Capping two weeks of final negotiations, the decision could reshape the future of work.

The conference – the annual meeting of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the United Nations agency that sets international standards for workers – also had to confront the current onslaught on civic and democratic freedoms. Delegates used the meeting to call out some of the world’s worst human rights repressors, including Belarus, Myanmar and Saudi Arabia. This revealed a tension at the conference’s heart: unprecedented collaboration to advance workers’ rights has come at a time when the democratic foundations that enable such cooperation face deep threats.

The platform economy breakthrough

Change began quietly, with a procedural vote few outside Geneva’s diplomatic circles noticed. For the first time in the ILO’s 106-year history, delegates agreed to develop specific and binding international standards for platform workers.

This wasn’t merely bureaucratic progress. Driven by advances in technology, platform workers, from delivery bikers and taxi drivers to data processors, are a growing part of the global workforce. Often described as part of the gig economy, these workers have their work allocated and controlled through online platforms. Their employers – technology giants worth hundreds of billions – typically argue that these workers aren’t their employees but independent contractors providing services, which means they aren’t covered by established labour protections such as sick pay, paid leave and the right to strike.

Set for finalisation at the 2026 conference, a Convention on decent work in the platform economy – a binding treaty that states will then be urged to ratify – and a Recommendation – a non-binding text that offers guidance on implementation – will establish fundamental labour rights for these workers, covering fair pay, social protection, occupational health and safety and data protection and privacy. For workers whose employment can be terminated by automated systems, whose every movement is tracked by GPS and whose earnings fluctuate according to opaque algorithmic decisions – such as the Uber drivers whose pay the company is accused of cutting to boost its profits – these protections could make a big difference.

With AI rapidly transforming workplaces, the timing is crucial. The question is no longer whether AI will reshape work, but whether workers will have any say in that transformation. Standards being crafted now can help determine whether technological progress puts human dignity before corporate profit.

The informality challenge

Alongside the growing numbers of platform workers stand the many more employed in the informal economy – that part of the economy that operates beyond government oversight. Globally, over 2,000 million people work in the informal economy, where they lack basic protections. The conference’s comprehensive resolution on formalising workers offers a recognition that decent work – work where fundamental rights are recognised and workers earn enough to meet their needs – is elusive in conditions of widespread informal working.

The resolution targets groups such as care workers, recycling workers and miners, who often work in dangerous conditions for subsistence wages. It demands national strategies to address the factors that perpetuate informal working: legal non-compliance, organised crime, stigmatisation and inadequate healthcare systems. It recognises that informal work isn’t confined to the global south, given the growing numbers of precarious gig economy workers in global north countries.

The resolution emphasises what it calls ‘enabling rights’ – freedom of association and collective bargaining – as prerequisites for worker protection, recognising the right for people to be able to join unions and take part in their actions. This focus on freedom of association is apposite, because wherever fundamental civic freedoms are under attack, workers are denied the power to take collective action to improve their working conditions.

Pandemic-proofing the workplace

Another major conference achievement came as a response to a tragedy made much worse by government and private sector failures. Convention 192 – the world’s first comprehensive standard for protecting workers from biological hazards – represents a collective commitment that the COVID-19 pandemic’s workplace disasters will never be repeated.

During the pandemic, healthcare workers died from preventable infections while many governments failed to deliver adequate protective equipment – and some businesses saw only an opportunity for corruption. The workers deemed essential were often those society places least economic value on, including the many gig economy workers working for delivery companies that banked record profits. Alongside others such as supermarket cashiers and bus drivers, they were forced to keep working without adequate safeguards, continually risking exposure to the virus. Even when employers tried to implement strong safety measures, they had virtually no international guidance.

Convention 192 provides that guidance. It demands that employers collaborate with workers to implement preventive measures and governments develop national policies covering risk assessment, early warning systems and emergency response protocols. The scope extends far beyond pandemic preparedness, acknowledging that biological threats – from laboratory accidents to waste management failures – are present in many workplaces.

Alongside the Convention, a Recommendation provides vital implementation guidance, covering everything from airborne transmission routes to whistleblower protections for workers who report unsafe conditions. Together, these legal texts offer a comprehensive approach that treats biological safety as a fundamental workplace right rather than an optional add-on.

Rights under attack

Despite these steps forward, there’s a stark reality of denied rights that spells trouble for their implementation. The International Trade Union Confederation’s 2025 Global Rights Index reports that a coordinated global assault on workers’ rights has reached crisis proportions. Only seven of 151 countries surveyed receive top-tier ratings for protection of workers’ rights. Average ratings have deteriorated across three of five global regions, with Europe and the Americas recording their worst scores in over a decade.

States are increasingly criminalising civil society organisations as agents of foreign interests if they receive any international funding, and trade unions and worker advocacy groups are being targeted as part of this. Governments are using repressive tactics such as physical violence against trade unionists, arbitrary detention of labour leaders and systematic suppression of strikes.

When states attack workers’ rights, it commonly comes alongside an assault on media freedoms, judicial independence and electoral integrity. Right-wing populist political leaders and the billionaires they’re typically aligned with increasingly see organised labour as an unacceptable threat to their economic and political agendas.

Against this global backdrop, the conference’s most dramatic moments came from its direct confrontations with authoritarian repression. In a series of unprecedented interventions, delegates demonstrated that the international community has the mechanisms to challenge systematic rights violations and retains some willingness to use them.

Myanmar faced a rare and serious sanction, the invocation of article 33 of the ILO Constitution. Article 33 addresses the failure of an ILO member state to carry out recommendations of a Commission of Inquiry or the International Court of Justice. In this case, Myanmar’s military junta has consistently failed to implement recommendations to end its use of forced and child labour, stop using torture and violence against union leaders and unconditionally release and drop charges against all trade unionists it has detained. The resolution, only the third such in the ILO’s history, urges governments, companies and unions worldwide to sever economic ties that sustain the regime.

Belarus, Europe’s most authoritarian state, was also on the meeting’s agenda. Delegates heard chilling testimony about the liquidation of all independent trade unions. Union leaders have been designated as extremists, imprisoned on politically motivated charges and forced into exile. Organised labour has been stripped of any political power.

European Union member Hungary also faced condemnation for undermining trade union rights through surveillance and legislative manipulation. The abolition of the automatic collection of union dues from payrolls, a seemingly technical change, has devastated union membership and finances, demonstrating how rights can be surreptitiously eroded through bureaucratic manoeuvres.

Some of the meeting’s most harrowing testimony focused on Saudi Arabia’s abusive treatment of migrant workers. Workers’ representatives documented a system of forced labour, wage theft, physical and sexual abuse and racism that amounts to modern slavery. With Saudi Arabia set to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup, it’s time to throw the global spotlight on this systematic suffering.

The implementation gap

Against this backdrop of extensive repression, the Global Coalition for Social Justice’s second annual forum, held alongside the International Labour Conference, embodied both the promise and problems of the ILO process. Since its 2023 launch, the coalition has brought together governments, employers, workers’ organisations and international institutions with the aim of putting social justice squarely at the centre of policymaking,

Yet the forum also made clear the gulf between declarations in Geneva and realities on the ground. Ratification of ILO Convention 192 will likely take years and can expect to face significant domestic political resistance from the businesses and politicians that are attacking workers’ rights at every turn. The convention on platform worker standards won’t be finalised until 2026, and even then, will require states to ratify it, an unlikely scenario in those states that are criminalising actions for workers’ rights.

The conference’s resolutions against authoritarian states come up against a fundamental limitation of international law: enforcement depends on the voluntary compliance of the states under scrutiny, and governments that systematically violate human rights are particularly adept at ignoring international criticism. Myanmar’s military junta, Belarus’s entrenched dictatorship and Saudi Arabia’s autocratic monarchy repeatedly demonstrate blanket disregard for international pressure, suggesting that moral condemnation isn’t going to force them to change.

Yet the 2025 conference proved that even in troubling times for democracy and multilateralism, international cooperation can still take positive steps. The unanimous adoption of platform worker protections and biological hazards standards demonstrates that shared human values can transcend geopolitical divisions. They set vital norms that can offer a rallying point for ongoing advocacy.

The question now is whether these advances in Geneva can survive their journey home. That will depend on the willingness of governments to honour their international commitments, the potential for worker mobilisation to overcome corporate resistance and the ability of civil society around the world to defend the democratic space needed to implement agreements in the face of the current wave of attacks.

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