Worker Rights in the Rise of the of the GIG Economy debated this morning in the Human Rights Council with delegations both in favor and opposed to the economic model.

A GIG economy,  a system where organizations contract independent workers for short periods of time, has gained incredible popularity in the last few years. Its believed that such increase is creating a negative forecast regarding formal jobs and it will continue to grow due to the rapid increase of the digital age.

The United Arab Emirates showed strong agreement regarding GIG economic systems and supports the creation and the formalization for the rights of such workers.

The Delegate of Spain presented information describing how big companies consider their regular workers as GIG workers giving the corporation the power to avoid taxes and dodge complete provision of human rights. She concluded by declaring that a GIG economy is not a very stable system and it is likely to crash.

“GIG economy workers do not have the same benefits as regular workers, therefore they should not have the same rights,” the Delegate of Spain said.

Different opinions created tension throughout the committee making it a more polemic topic than it already is.

The Delegation of Italy introduced a GIG worker from Spain, Santiago Vasco, who explained how difficult his economic situation was and at first, how viable becoming a GIG worker seemed. Later Vasco suffered an accident and was discouraged by the fact that he is not being protected by health insurance, even after agreeing to the terms and conditions that GIG work offered.

The Delegate of Spain questioned the witness as to why his permanent employment did not cover his health insurance.The session ended with a very heated debate in which different solutions were proposed by the different parties which divided the commission completely.

Despite the spirited debate, the Human Rights Council was unable to reach an agreement on the issue. Delegations showed their concern about the topic and demonstrated their strong position considering the problematic. Since the beginning of the debate, opinions were strongly polarized.