Background:

Worldwide, only 35.4% of the labour force is covered "by law" for employment injury insurance. The challenge of extending employment injury protection remains of high importance in many countries. In China, coverage of employment injury insurance (EII) is still relatively low when compared to the success in the expansion of coverage of employee pension schemes.

Workers in non-standard forms of employment and particularly workers working locally through digital labour platforms are highly prone to work injuries. In many countries, including China, despite of the high incidence of work injuries associated with the platform work, the platform workers cannot access work injury social insurance for legal and administrative reasons. Indeed, the coverage of platform workers against accidents and diseases originating from work, is made difficult because they do not have an identified employer and are mostly categorized as self-employed. In most cases and in China, social insurance legislation still requires that the worker has labour relations with an employer. However, a growing number of countries are exploring reforms towards adopting and implementing EII systems following ILO social security standards that apply to platform workers regardless of their labour relations. In China, several provinces have experimented the creation of different models of social insurance coverage and a guiding opinion from the State Council published in 2021 indicated that a new regulatory framework would be established by June 2021.

Against this background, the ILO Country Office for China and Mongolia and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS) jointly organized a one-day Research Seminar on Employment Injury Insurance (EII) for Workers in the Platform Economy on 27 April 2021. The Seminar built on the principles of international standards and the review of domestic and international experiences to provide recommendations for a national regulatory framework aimed at social insurance coverage of platform workers under EII in China.

Objectives:

• Review international standards and national social insurance law and regulations on employment injury protection
• Understand the challenges to cover workers in digital platform employment internationally and domestically
• Share national and international experiences on coverage of workers in digital platform employment in employment injury protection
• Reflect on opportunities for a national regulatory framework for the coverage of workers in digital platform employment in employment injury protection

Participants:

The Seminar gathered about 70 participants from MOHRSS at national and provincial levels, Chinese Academy of Labour and Social Security (CALSS) and Social Insurance Administration of MOHRSS, as well as Social Partners (All-China Federation of Trade Unions and China Enterprise Confederation). International experts were invited to present international standards and national experiences (Sweden, Spain, Malaysia and Canada).

Modality:

The Seminar took place in Beijing face to face for participants residing in China. The international experts presented online or via pre-recorded videos.

Presentations:

1. Platform work and employment relationship, by Martine Humblet, ILO Legal Specialist on Working Conditions (INWORK)