It’s a rainy afternoon in Maputo, and Albino is weaving through traffic on his way to the Ministry of Natural Resources. An engineering graduate, he has made this trip many times before, resumé in hand. The receptionist is always encouraging, he explains, though they both understand it is unlikely to lead anywhere. Desperate for work, Albino eventually signed up with Yango, an e-hailing app developed by a Russian tech conglomerate headquartered in Dubai.

A relatively late entrant to the e-hailing ecosystem, Yango’s business model targets countries where digital and financial systems are uneven. It currently operates in a dozen African countries, including Ethiopia, Congo, and Mozambique. Drivers purchase prepaid vouchers from informal agents to access the app, while riders typically pay through mobile money. Like drivers on other apps, Albino is classified as self-employed but has very little autonomy over the labor process.

Albino’s biggest grievance is the low fares, which can fall to as little as $0.50 per kilometer. When Yango first entered the market, drivers were lured onto the platform with promotions. But once the app was established, rates declined, and algorithmic management systems became increasingly punitive. Today, drivers cannot see the pick-up or drop-off location until they start the ride. “Driving Yango is like playing the lottery. You don’t win if you don’t play, but the odds of winning are slim.”

The rise of platform worker protests

Across the globe, there has been a proliferation of platform worker protests and organizations. According to the Leeds Index, there have been at least 76 strikes by platform workers in Africa. But these actions have been concentrated in a handful of countries — South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, and Egypt — all of which were early adopters of digital labor platforms. Most strikes have been by e-hailing workers, with primary targets being Uber and Bolt. In some instances, these have been led by autonomous associations, while in others, they are affiliated with trade unions. By forming alliances with unions, platform workers’ associations have been able to draw on their institutional resources, experience, and political leverage to strengthen their bargaining position. However, these alliances are often unstable, as unions struggle to transform their structures, strategies, and tactics.

Crucially, while platform companies are highly mobile, workers in the e-hailing sector are geographically tethered. This gives them potential structural power to disrupt operations and extract concessions.

Platform companies, for their part, have often responded by flooding platforms with new drivers. Crucially, while platform companies are highly mobile, workers in the e-hailing sector are geographically tethered. This gives them potential structural power to disrupt operations and extract concessions. However, their ability to exercise that power is constrained by low barriers to entry, high unemployment, widespread informality, an absent social safety net, and rising indebtedness. For many workers, the cost of striking for any sustained period of time is simply too high. And multinational platform companies have deep pockets to weather any conflict.

Debt as a strategy of labor control

One of the most insidious forms of labor control has been the integration of fintechs into platform business models. A prominent example on the African continent is the Moove vehicle financing scheme for Uber drivers. Instead of relying on traditional credit checks, the company uses workers’ proprietary productivity data to determine loan eligibility. The scheme, which is structured around a rent-to-own model, requires no upfront payments. Instead, a weekly repayment is deducted automatically from their earnings.

Yet, as emerging protests against Moove in Nigeria demonstrate, these arrangements often deepen workers’ vulnerability and undermine their agency.

Moove claims that this model can democratize vehicle ownership by providing financing to mobility “entrepreneurs” who might otherwise be excluded from the banking system. In addition to financing, Moove offers a maintenance plan, insurance, and roadside assistance. In a context where platforms are continuously phasing out older cars, such schemes can offer a lifeline to drivers struggling to remain active on the app.

Yet, as emerging protests against Moove in Nigeria demonstrate, these arrangements often deepen workers’ vulnerability and undermine their agency. By leveraging platform data, fintechs can extend lines of credit at relatively low risk because they effectively have the power to garnish workers’ wages. When Moove first started recruiting clients in Nigeria, they offered competitive rates. However, as operating costs rose, the company shifted the burden entirely onto workers, doubling repayment rates without extending repayment periods or offering relief. Fearful of losing the vehicle if they are unable to meet payments, platform workers often accept high levels of exploitation.

The contradictions of regulation

Nevertheless, propelled by the intensification of platform worker protests and organization, governments are increasingly moving to regulate the platform economy. Approaches vary widely across Africa, ranging from sector-specific regulations to labor law reforms. In Kenya, the government approved the National Transport and Safety Authority Regulations for the ride-hailing sector in 2022 (GoK, 2022). While it reasserts that e-hailing drivers are self-employed, it was celebrated by workers’ associations because it capped commissions at 18% and established due process mechanisms to curb arbitrary suspensions.

Initially, the Digital Taxi Association of Kenya did not contest the classification of drivers as self-employed because they too identified as such. However, over time, the limitations of this classification have become more apparent, particularly because it excludes workers from standard employment protections. When subsequently asked whether they would support their reclassification as workers, most responded affirmatively, reflecting the fluid and often contradictory nature of class identities in the platform economy.

Ultimately, the move to regulate the platform economy has revived longstanding debates over how to extend standard employment protections to gig workers without undermining their individual and collective agency.

In South Africa, the government has moved in a different direction, proposing amendments to the labor laws that would expand the definition of employer and employee. These reforms could extend standard employment protections — including minimum wages, paid leave, social security, occupational health and safety coverage, and the right to collectively bargain — to platform workers. However, much will depend on whether workers’ organizations can successfully litigate these cases against power platform companies with deep pockets.

Notably, the proposed amendments to the labor law do little to protect workers who want to remain self-employed. And as the head of the platform workers’ organization noted, this is a considerable group. Ultimately, the move to regulate the platform economy has revived longstanding debates over how to extend standard employment protections to gig workers without undermining their individual and collective agency.

Towards international labor standards for the platform economy

This June, member states of the International Labour Organization are set to adopt a Convention regarding minimum labour standards for the platform economy. While there is broad agreement on the need for regulations, disagreements persist over how platform workers should be classified, what rights they should be entitled to, and who should provide them. Employers’ representatives maintain that platforms merely provide ‘matching services’ between customers and independent contractors – and that algorithmic management is simply a coordination tool rather than a mechanism of labor control (ILO, 2025). Yet they also defend restricting workers from refusing tasks without penalty (ILO, 2025).

Ultimately, the process of making platform workers legible for regulation is a political rather than technical one.

Workers’ organizations, along with many governments, counter that platform workers are effectively disguised employees, who have no autonomy over the labor process due to the use of algorithmic management. However, not all African platform workers’ organizations agree. In a context where most people derive a livelihood primarily from informal employment, platformization has also induced a degree of structure, recognition, and opportunity that was previously out of reach. This creates some level of ambivalence among workers and policy-makers alike.

Ultimately, the process of making platform workers legible for regulation is a political rather than technical one. By defining the terms of engagement between capital, labor, and the state, international labor standards operate simultaneously as instruments of protection and mechanisms of control, by determining whose demands are recognized as legitimate and whose are rendered expendable. Regulations must thus be designed carefully to ensure that they strengthen rather than undermine platform workers’ power and organization.

Conclusion

For Albino — who operates in a context where platforms are still new, worker organization is weak, and government is perceived as ineffective, if not outright hostile — these debates feel very abstract. He has given up hope of ever practicing his profession as an engineer. Instead, he is trying to save enough money driving for Yango to start an import-export clothing business on Instagram. He already has the contact of a distributor in China, he says, who has promised to help him out. If the government is serious about promoting decent work, they need to move into the industry of the country: set up agro-processing industries connected to domestic value chains that can feed the country. Asked whether he might join a platform workers’ association or trade union, Albino is sceptical. “Over the years, I’ve learned that everyone is just looking out for themselves,” he explains. “There is no point trying to change; you just run into barriers. The system is set up for those who govern.”

Nevertheless, extensive research shows that (wage) work remains critical to workers’ social and political identities. As digital platforms penetrate almost all sectors of the economy, they have become an increasingly strategic growth area for the trade union movement. However, platform workers do not fit neatly within established frameworks for labor relations, forcing unions to rethink their mandate, dues collection mechanisms, strategies of recruitment and organization, and models of representation. These transformations can be uncomfortable for established institutions. However, if the trade union movement is to remain a relevant social force within society, it must adapt to the changing world of work.