2025 Conference

Theme and Topics

The Asian Society of Labour Law (AsianSLL), with the University of the Philippines Law Center Workers and Employees Program (WEP), invites everyone to attend the AsianSLL 2025 Conference on 22 November 2025, Saturday, online via Microsoft Teams, from 9:30 to 18:00 (UTC +8:00).

With the theme “The World in Transition: Challenges and Prospects on Labour”, the conference will cover the following topics:

1. The effects on workers of tariffs imposed by the United States

2. Impact of Artificial Intelligence on labor-related issues

3. Migrant workers

4. Work from Home

5. Privacy issues in the workplace

6. Platform workers

Programme

The programme is available at https://upsystem-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/law_wep_upd_outlook_up_edu_ph/EYqYbpuTKHhAhDcXuIGQxjsBrpVI2qPE5XoheriDQGvAKQ?e=Ca1B1A

Registration

Please register at https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/rrn58JB78d or through the QR code. Thank you.

Abstracts

Session 1: How do Chinese Courts Determine the Employment Relations of Workers in Platform Companies?: An Analysis of Court Rulings on Delivery Riders between 2021 and 2024

Professor Dr Wenfang Wu

Purpose - This study empirically analyzes Chinese court rulings on the determination of employment relations for delivery platform workers between 2021 and 2024. It explores the evolving characteristics, changes and trends in judicial decisions within the context of recent policy developments. 

Design/methodology/approach - Using a mixed-method empirical approach, the study combines quantitative and qualitative analyzes of publicly available court rulings in China. It identifies emerging patterns and developments in judicial reasoning influenced by recent shifts in regulatory frameworks. 

Findings - The study reveals a significant decline in cases involving platform workers with typical crowdsourcing features seeking employment recognition, following the introduction of the "incomplete employment relation" concept. Judicial focus has shifted to identifying hidden employment relations within these incomplete forms. Courts now emphasize the principle of primacy of facts, assessing the actual exercise of labour management rather than relying on formal contracts. When determining the employer, courts often identify contractors or agents overseeing platform delivery services as responsible parties, regardless of specific outsourcing structures. Notably, work-related injuries remain a crucial factor shaping courts' subjective value judgments in employment recognition. 

Research limitation/implications - This study is limited to delivery platform workers, which may not fully represent the diversity of platform-based labour in other sectors. Additionally, as the analysis is confined to judicial rulings, it may not capture the full complexity of labour conditions beyond the courtroom. 

Originality/value - This study provides a timely empirical account of how Chinese courts are addressing the legal ambiguities surrounding platform labour, particularly in light of evolving policy directives. It contributes to comparative labour law by examining how judicial reasoning in platform labour cases adapts traditional employment theories to accommodate new forms of work. The findings also offer insights into future legal reform in platform governance and employment classification. 

Key words Platform power, Delivery riders, Platform economy, Incomplete employment relation, China 

Paper type Research paper

Session 1: Are They Workers? Collective Bargaining and the Legal Status of Amazon Japan Couriers

Professor Dr Chikako Kanki

This presentation examines whether Amazon Japan couriers can be legally regarded as “workers” under Japan’s Trade Union Act and whether Amazon itself can be considered their “employer” for the purpose of collective bargaining. The issue has emerged amid growing disputes involving platform-based delivery work and highlights the challenges of applying traditional labor law to digital employment models.

Under Japanese labor law, “employees” are protected by the Labour Standards Act, while “workers” under the Trade Union Act enjoy collective rights such as unionization and collective bargaining. The definition of “worker” focuses on economic dependency rather than formal employment contracts. Courts use six criteria to determine worker status, including the degree of employer control, integration into the business, and entrepreneurial independence.

Amazon couriers in Japan operate under two main models: Amazon Flex drivers contracted directly with Amazon, and delivery contractors hired through intermediary companies. Despite different contractual relationships, both groups are governed by the Amazon app Rabbit, which allocates parcels, dictates delivery routes, monitors performance, and collects data. This algorithmic management system effectively controls couriers’ working conditions, undermining their autonomy.

The couriers’ union has sought collective bargaining with Amazon over wages, working hours, safety, and algorithmic transparency. Amazon refused, claiming it is not the couriers’ employer. However, given Amazon’s extensive digital supervision and influence over remuneration, it may qualify as an employer “in a position to actually and specifically control and decide on basic working conditions.”

This case symbolizes a broader legal question: how labor law should adapt to platform-based and algorithmically managed work. Recognizing Amazon as a bargaining counterpart would not be a radical reform, but a necessary adjustment to ensure fair collective rights in the digital economy.

Session 1: Fissured Workplace and Policy Responses in the Digital Age: Insights from China’s Food Delivery Platform

Dr Wei Tu

This working paper examines the evolving manifestations of the fissured workplace in the era of digital technologies. The rapid advancement of digital technology has profoundly reshaped both the employment practices of platform enterprises and broader labour market dynamics. Focusing on China's food delivery platforms—representative digital platforms characterized by rapid expansion and large-scale development—this study analyzes the role of digital platforms in driving extreme labour market fissuring within the food delivery industry. From a historical perspective, digital platforms have facilitated a transition from direct employment of riders to outsourced labour models. More significantly, digital platforms have enabled enterprises to entirely detach themselves from formal labour relationships, promoting on-demand work as an exceptionally flexible form of employment. This evolution highlights a new dimension of the longstanding labour law dilemma regarding the identification of the employer in the digital economy—namely, the fragmentation of the employer’s role and the real-time transformation of employer responsibilities. Drawing on empirical analysis, this paper further examines China’s current regulatory responses and identifies potential gaps in the legal framework governing platform-based employment.

Session 2: Organising Foreign Domestic Workers: Collective Voice and the Limits of Hong Kong’s Labour Law

Darcy Lynn Davison-Roberts

This paper examines the capacity for collective voice among migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in Hong Kong SAR and the structural limits of the SAR’s labour law in enabling meaningful organisation. Although FDWs are formally covered by the Employment Ordinance (Cap 57) and enjoy the constitutional right to form and join trade unions, Hong Kong’s voluntarist model of industrial relations provides no statutory machinery for collective bargaining or sectoral dialogue. These institutional gaps are compounded by the live-in and two-week rules, which restrict spatial autonomy and continuity of organising. The result is a regime of formal inclusion but functional exclusion, where unionisation is lawful but largely symbolic. By analysing the interaction between labour law, immigration control, and the household as workplace, this paper argues that existing frameworks individualise employment and fragment collective voice. It concludes by suggesting legal and policy reforms, including sectoral consultative mechanisms and enhanced protection for worker representatives, to make collective rights meaningful for domestic workers in Hong Kong.

Session 2: Towards a Rights-Based and Gender-Responsive Placement System for Migrant Workers: Lessons from Indonesia

Yvonne Kezia D. Nafi

Indonesia’s migration landscape continues to be shaped by the feminization of labour mobility, persistent vulnerabilities throughout the migration cycle, and structural governance gaps. This presentation examines Indonesia’s ongoing reforms aimed at strengthening the rights-based and gender-responsive protection of migrant workers. It outlines the historical evolution of the migrant worker protection regime and highlights current legislative revisions to Law No. 18/2017, which seek to deepen the State’s role as a primary duty-bearer and reinforce migrants’ status as rights-holders with enforceable entitlements.

The analysis further explores efforts to embed gender equality and care-sensitive approaches in recruitment, placement, and reintegration processes. A central component of ongoing reforms is the development of a national accreditation system for Private Placement Agencies (P3MI), aligned with ILO Fair Recruitment Principles and supported by verification and validation mechanisms inspired by international best practices. 

Despite these advances, substantial challenges remain. These include implementation gaps between policy and practice, weak inter-agency coordination, limited institutional capacity, particularly for gender-responsive monitoring, and the persistence of informal recruitment networks, conflicts of interest, and cultural barriers that hinder the realization of migrants’ rights. The presentation concludes by underscoring the importance of multi-stakeholder oversight and continuous policy learning to ensure accountability, coherence, and sustainable reform in Indonesia’s migration governance framework.

Session 2: A Case for Going Beyond Social Security: Interrogating India's Regulatory Approach to Platform Work

Associate Professor Dr Saurabh Bhattacharjee

India's platform economy has experienced explosive growth over the past decade, emerging as one of the world's largest gig labour markets. Recent estimates suggest that India's platform workforce comprises approximately 7.7 million workers as of 2020-21, with projections indicating growth to 23.5 million workers by 2029-30 (NITI Aayog, 2022). This workforce spans diverse sectors including ride-hailing, food and grocery delivery, logistics,  home services and increasingly, care work and professional services. However, this growth has been accompanied by deepening precarity and worker vulnerability.

India's regulatory response to platform work has been characterized by fragmentation, experimentation, and tension between centre and state jurisdictions. At the national level, the Code on Social Security, 2020 introduced the category of ‘gig workers’ and ‘platform workers’ mandating that aggregators contribute to social security funds and establishing welfare boards. However, the Code has maintained the ambiguity around employment status, leaving workers without core labour rights including minimum wages, working time limits, or collective bargaining protections.

The Code on Social Security 2020 (yet to be implemented) has been followed by State-level regulations that reflect diverse political economies and labour movement strengths. Rajasthan enacted the Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023, India's first state legislation for platform workers. The Act mandated establishment of a welfare board with contribution by platforms and created a framework for extending social security provisions to workers. However, it stops short of recognizing employment relationships or granting collective bargaining rights.

The State of Karnataka passed the Platform-Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Act, 2025, going further than Rajasthan's approach. This statue mandates a Welfare Fee to be paid by platforms. It also contains provisions on algorithmic transparency and prohibition on sudden deactivation without notice and reasons. Other states like Bihar have also passed legislation on similar lines with few variations. These state level legislations have also sought to bypass the question of employment status and not extended the statutory rights available in labour and industrial laws of India to platform workers. Instead, they have created a sui generis legal regime for platform workers that is limited to social security and welfare,

It is argued that India's emerging regulatory framework for platform work, with  predominant focus on social security mechanisms, is fundamentally insufficient to address the structural vulnerabilities facing platform workers. This approach has created a fragmented landscape that extends limited welfare protections while systematically avoiding the core question of employment status. This strategic ambiguity allows platforms to continue misclassifying workers as partners, thereby denying them fundamental labour rights including minimum wage protections, working time regulations, occupational safety and health provisions, and collective bargaining entitlements.

It is argued that without resolving the employment classification question, platform workers will remain in a regulatory vacuum where they bear entrepreneurial risks and lack access to the full spectrum of labour law protections. While state-level innovations in Rajasthan, Karnataka, and Bihar represent important steps, these measures function as compensatory mechanisms rather than structural interventions that address power asymmetries inherent in platform-mediated work relationships.

Moving beyond social security requires a comprehensive regulatory agenda that guarantees clarity on employment status through presumption of employment as provided in the European Commission’s Platform Work Directive, specific entitlements on algorithmic transparency and accountability frameworks, extension of right to collective bargaining and platform liability. Only such a multidimensional approach can transform platform work into decent work.

Session 3: Historical Guideposts on AI and the Future of Work

Assistant Professor Emerson S. Bañez

The externalities from the current generation of AI, especially the dangers of bias, can be traced to an ahistorical attitude prevalent in the culture and leadership of big technology firms. This attitude is manifest in several underlying myths, such as the popular creation accounts of the Silicon Valley garage, the model of the brilliant CEO/founder, and the belief that the technology industry is working towards a transcendent good. In this presentation, I hope to present historical counterpoints to this attitude.These episodes from actual historical events are offered to provide important lessons for confrontation and resistance against the technology sector’s vision of work amidst artificial intelligence.

Session 3: Challenges and Prospects of Workers’ Rights in the Age of AI—A Taiwanese Experience

Assistant Professor Dr Guan-Chiau Chiou

The integration of artificial intelligence into workplace governance in Taiwan is unfolding on top of a substantial body of existing legal scholarship. Taiwanese researchers have developed detailed analyses of digital surveillance practices, employer data processing, and workers’ informational privacy under the Personal Data Protection Act. Judicial decisions have further refined the standards for evaluating workplace monitoring—particularly the reasonable-expectation-of-privacy and proportionality tests—which together form an important doctrinal basis for assessing new forms of automated management. In addition, Taiwan’s extensive literature on platform work has examined the employment status, working conditions, and algorithm-based coordination of delivery workers, offering nuanced insights into control, dependency, and regulatory design. These contributions illustrate the depth of Taiwan’s engagement with technology-related labor issues.

This presentation builds on these foundations to consider several emerging questions arising from the increasing use of AI in routine management processes. Continuous evaluation, automated feedback, and opaque performance scoring may generate psychosocial pressures distinct from traditional interpersonal misconduct. Limited transparency surrounding algorithmic decision-making may also make it difficult for unions to participate meaningfully in consultations regarding workload, fairness, and technological implementation.

Looking ahead, this presentation proposes several possible directions for future development in Taiwan: incorporating mental-health considerations into AI impact assessments, strengthening information and consultation rights for workers and unions, and clarifying legal concepts to better address systemic or structural forms of workplace harm. By situating Taiwan’s experience within broader comparative and international discussions, this presentation aims to highlight both Taiwan’s achievements and its opportunities for continued development in responding to the labor implications of AI.

Session 3: The Paradox of Equal Protection and Just Transition: Challenges of a Uniform Philippine Labor and Social Protection Legal Framework in Addressing Differentiated Worker Vulnerabilities across Sectoral Green Transitions

Attorney Jayvy Gamboa

Green or low-carbon transitions presents yet another disruption in our societies. Best available science states that a sectoral approach to such transitions which prioritizes high-emitting systems is critical to achieve the climate temperature targets. However, differentiated worker vulnerabilities within these sectors are also expected to unfold.

This trajectory presents a clear challenge to the existing labor and social protection legal frameworks, composed of minimum standards with general application to workers, which impliedly affirms, whether intentionally or not, the view that workers are of a single class to whom a uniform standard ought to apply. Does the existing labor and social protection legal framework have the legal efficacy to address such differentiated worker vulnerabilities? If not, is there a way forward?

The study answers these questions by applying the Philippine Labor and Social Protection Legal Framework in Green Transitions by Gamboa (expected 2026) to the Philippine sectoral transitions. The lived experiences of Filipino workers in on-going and upcoming transitions in energy, transport, and agriculture sectors, which lead to their differentiated vulnerabilities, are used as reference to see the limits of such a uniform standard in effectively protecting workers.

Moreover, without diminishing the normative value of security and stability that a uniform standard provides, an alternative of ‘fit-for-purpose sectoral legal framework’ is explored. Such alternative, because it seeks to provide specific protections for at-risk workers in green transitions rather than a uniform standard for all, seems at odds with the constitutional precept of equal protection of the laws. Using the Law and Political Economy (LPE) approach by Britton-Purdy, et al. (2020), a restatement of labor and social protection law that is more grounded in differentiated contexts of workers is attempted, one which liberates it from the prejudice of the ‘Twentieth Century Synthesis’ that views workers as a homogenous legal class reminiscent of capitalism.

Speakers

Session 1: Professor Dr Wenfang Wu

Wu Wenfang, Professor and PhD supervisor at the School of Law, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and a leading figure in the field of economic law. She earned her PhD in law through a joint program between Renmin University of China and the University of Münster in Germany. Her main research areas are labor law and social security law. She has served as a visiting scholar at the Commercial Law Research Center of Queen Mary University of London, and concurrently holds positions as an executive director of the China Society of Social Law and a director of the Case Law Society of the China Law Society, among others.

Session 1: Professor Dr Chikako Kanki

Chikako Kanki is a Professor at the Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, the University of Tokyo, Japan. She holds a Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of Tokyo (2010). Her research focuses on labour and employment law, with particular interest in minimum wage regulation and the correction of disparities between regular and non-regular workers. Her major publications include Legal Regulation of Minimum Wage: Comparative Study of the UK and French Systems, Including the Social Security Systems (Shinzansha, 2011) and “Minimum Wage, Public Assistance and Basic Income” (2012) Welfare Plus Alpha 152.

Session 1: Dr Wei Tu

TU Wei is currently a Labour Law Specialist at the International Labour Organization Country Office for China and Mongolia. His research interests include digital platform work and other non-standard forms of employment, labour provisions in free trade agreements (FTAs), and comparative labour law.

As a researcher, he has published several peer-reviewed journal articles on topics such as new forms of employment and labour protection in China, the legal status of quasi-subordinate workers in China, and the evolution of labour provisions and dispute settlement mechanisms in FTAs. In addition, he has translated and published a number of academic monographs covering a wide range of subjects, including the platform economy and labour law.

Since holding his PhD, TU Wei has held research and visiting research positions at various academic institutions, including the Chinese Academy of Labour and Social Security and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.

Session 2: Darcy Lynn Davison-Roberts

Darcy Lynn Davison-Roberts is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Director of the Postgraduate Certificate in Laws at the University of Hong Kong. She specialises in labour and employment law, with a particular focus on precarious work, gendered labour markets, and the interaction between legal structures and inequality. Her recent research includes Beyond 4-18: Gendered Labour Precarity and the Limits of Law Reform in Hong Kong, which analyses how statutory thresholds operate as mechanisms of exclusion in Hong Kong’s labour market. Her broader work analyses how different labour law regimes across Asia respond to precarious and migrant work, and what these comparative insights reveal about regulatory gaps in Hong Kong.

Session 2: Yvonne Kezia D. Nafi

Yvonne Kezia D. Nafi is a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Universitas Indonesia, specializing in law and society, gender studies, and labour policy. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Universitas Indonesia, and an LL.M. in Public International Law from the Universiteit van Amsterdam. She is currently pursuing her doctoral studies at the University of Indonesia, focusing on paternity leave policy through a sociologie législative and child rights–based approach.

Beyond teaching, Yvonne serves as a legal consultant for the International Labour Organization (ILO), contributing to Indonesia’s ongoing reforms on migrant worker protection, including the development of an accreditation and verification system for Private Placement Agencies (P3MI) aligned with ILO Fair Recruitment Principles. Her research interests span migrant worker protection, care work, gender equality in labour policy, and socio-legal analyses of work and family norms in Asia.

Session 2: Associate Professor Dr Saurabh Bhattacharjee

Associate Professor and Co-Director, Centre for Labour Studies, National Law School of India University

Session 3: Assistant Professor Emerson S. Bañez

Emerson is an Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines College of Law. He is also a member of the Philippine Judicial Academy’s Corps of Professors. Prior to entering the legal profession, he was a programmer working on web and mobile applications. Emerson obtained his law degree from  the University of the Philippines,and his Master of Laws from Kyushu University, where he is currently a 2nd-year LLD student. His research interest is in the intersection of law, policy, and technology. 

Session 3: Assistant Professor Dr Guan-Chiau Chiou

Guan-Chiau (Cedric) Chiou is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Financial and Economic Law, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan. He holds a Ph.D. in Law from National Chengchi University. His research focuses on labor and employment law, with particular interests in collective labor relations and workplace bullying prevention. His recent scholarship includes comparative studies on workplace bullying regulation in Canada and Japan, as well as analyses of minimum service requirements in Taiwan’s collective labor law framework. He has presented his work at several international conferences, including LLRN and ISLSSL.

Session 3: Attorney Jayvy Gamboa

Atty. Jayvy R. Gamboa is a lawyer working for the protection of socio-economic rights of Filipino workers amid transitions and disruptions, such as digital and platform economy, climate risks, and systems transition necessary for climate action, through developmental legal advocacy, teaching, and reform-oriented research.

He currently teaches Labor Law at the University of the Philippines College of Law, the De La Salle Lipa College of Law, and at the Ateneo de Manila University’s Departments of Economics and of Development Studies. He also designed and teaches “Just Transition in Climate Resilient Development” and “Just Transition Law”—one of the first university- and law school-level courses on just transition, respectively, in the Philippines and in the world.

Posters