The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) celebrates a court decision released last December ordering Ninja Van to reinstate 131 of its riders whom the leading logistics provider in Southeast Asia retrenched for allegedly going on AWOL at work. The court decision is a most welcome statement about the labor rights of workers in the country’s platform industry.

On December 19, the fifth division of the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) ruled that the Ninja Van management’s basis for claiming that the workers went on AWOL were belied by its own records and statements. It also said that the management committed unfair labor practices by replacing the riders with so-called “independent contractors” in retaliation for the riders’ union activities.

The NLRC also stated that the management should not, in any way, interfere with workers’ unionization efforts, as when the Ninja Van management carried out the constructive dismissal of workers in the guise of implementing its Riders Performance Evaluation or RPE, a set of evaluation standards.

We join the Ninja Van Workers Union (NVWU), the Federation of Free Workers (FFW), with which the NVWU is affiliated, and all workers in the platfrom industry in celebrating the NLRC order to reinstate the 131 riders. By fighting for their rights, the Ninja Van workers have successfully defended their jobs and have pushed the government to commit to upholding labor rights in their workplace and in the entire platform industry.

The NLRC decision is a boost to the right to security of tenure and to freedom of association that should be enjoyed by all platform industry workers and all workers. It sheds light on the new but essentially old means by which companies in the platform industry try to subvert workers’ rights – by treating workers as “independent contractors” and not employees, removing them from work when they unionize, and using legitimate reasons to try to justify the retrenchment.

CTUHR joins the FFW and the Filipino labor movement in looking forward to the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) release of a convention and a recommendation to ensure decent work in the platform economy in June, following the International Trade Union Confederation’s (ITUC) campaigns on the issue. Platform workers are workers and should enjoy their labor rights. Innovation does not mean the disappearance of workers and their labor rights.

The Ninja Van workers’ struggle and the NLRC decision should motivate and stimulate platform workers and other Filipino workers to form their unions and organizations. Even employers in newer industries will not automatically respect labor rights, and collective action and rights assertion remain necessary for workers to enjoy their labor rights and a decent life.