Regulating Platform Work in Indonesia: Exploring Legal Options for Workers’ Protection

Abstract

The rise of digital labour platforms has disrupted traditional labour market arrangements and exposed significant gaps in Indonesia’s regulatory framework. Existing labour law instruments, does not adequately capture the relationship between platform companies and workers, as such arrangements fall short of the definitional threshold of an employment relationship. On the other hand, the partnership model under Law on Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises is equally ill-suited to address the dependent and asymmetric nature of platform-mediated work. This regulatory vacuum has enabled the systemic exploitation of platform workers by denying their access to basic labour protections and, at the same time, precluding the possibility of equitable partnership with the platforms. In this paper, we explore three potential options for regulating platform in Indonesia. First, enacting a specific law on platform work that establishes a sui generis “third box” legal category for platform-based labour relations. Second, redefining the concept of “employment relationship” within a revised Manpower Law to encompass platform work and other non-standard forms of employment. Third, incremental reforms through technical regulations in the form of Presidential Regulations or Ministry Regulations that provide partial protections without altering the underlying legal categories of work.