SINGAPORE Law and Practice Contributed by: Kelvin Tan, Benjamin Gaw and Lim Chong Kin, Drew & Napier LLC
• Flexi-load –
• Sector-specific definitions of when a platform worker is considered to be “at work” should be determined. • The strengths of the current WICA regime should be retained, including the provision of work injury compensation insurance through the existing open and competitive insurance market. • The CPF contribution rates of platform companies and platform workers should be aligned with those of employers and employees respectively (required for platform workers who are aged below 30 in the first year of implementation). • Older platform workers who are aged 30 and above in the first year of implementation of the aligned CPF rates should be allowed to opt in to the full CPF contribution regime. • Platform companies should be required to collect platform workers’ CPF contributions to help work - ers make timely contributions. • The increased CPF contributions should be phased in over five years, unless major economic disrup - tion warrants a longer timeline. To ease the impact, the government may wish to consider providing support for platform workers (and the form this should take). • Platform workers should be given the right to seek formal representation through a new representation framework designed for platform workers. • A Tripartite Workgroup on Representation for Platform Workers should be set up to co-create the new representation framework (for more details on representation of platform workers, see 6.2 Employee Representative Bodies ). These 12 recommendations have been incorporated into the Platform Workers Bill, which has been passed by parliament on 10 September 2024 and came into force on 1 January 2025 as the Platform Workers Act 2024.
(a) job sharing; and (b) part-time work.
• Flexi-time – (a) creative scheduling; (b) staggered time; (c) compressed work schedule; and (d) flexi-hours. • Flexi-place ‒
(a) teleworking; and (b) home-working.
Platform Workers With the advent of online platforms such as food deliv - ery and ride-hailing apps, there has also been a rise in the number of platform workers using these platforms to provide their services. However, the government has recognised that plat - form workers are in a precarious position due to their generally modest incomes and exposure to significant risk due to the amount of time spent on the road. Hence, the Advisory Committee on Platform Workers was established to look into how platform workers could be better protected. In November 2022, the Advisory Committee on Plat - form Workers published 12 recommendations that sought to address the lack of protection for platform workers. The following 12 recommendations were accepted by the government. • Platform workers should not be classified as employees. • Platform companies that exert a significant level of management control over platform workers should be required to provide them with certain basic protections. • Platform companies should be required to provide the same scope and level of work injury compen - sation as employees are entitled to under the Work Injury Compensation Act (WICA). • The platform company for which the platform worker was working at the time of injury should be required to provide compensation, based on the platform worker’s total earnings from the platform sector in which the injury was sustained.
6. Collective Relations 6.1 Unions
Trade unions are associations of workers or employers with the regulation of employer–employee relations as their main aim, for the purposes of:
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