Preamble
We hold these truths to be self-evident.
We hold the following rights to be self-evident: they are older than any platform, for they arise from the nature of work itself, and no algorithm, no business model, and no market share can set them aside. Therefore, anyone who operates a gigOS platform must observe and enact them.
We do not write these laws down because they are new. We write them down because they are being broken, or could be broken — every day, on every continent, by operators who have understood the desperation of the supply side as a source of profit. This is a declaration of friendship and of war at once: addressed to every platform that brokers work, the good ones and the bad ones.
Work is a strand in a person's lifeline; their dignity grows from it.
Part I – The Laws of the Market
For every gigOS platform, every operator, every country. Whoever breaks them disqualifies themselves.
1. No withholding of earned wages
“Whoever sells their labor for a day must be paid before nightfall. (Deuteronomy 24:14–15)”
This law is far more than two thousand years old, and for good reason it found its way into the Bible (Deuteronomy 24:14–15; Leviticus 19:13; the Talmud, Tractate Bava Metzia): the day laborer lives on that day's wage — his dinner, his rent, his family do not wait for a corporation's accounting cycle. Whoever delays payouts is financed interest-free by the very people who carry the system. Immediate payout is not a platform's charity; it is its first duty.
2. Oversupply does not absolve from respecting dignity
“An oversupply of providers and services must never push the price of work so low that it is no longer worthwhile for the contractor.”
When the supply side balloons and contractors underbid one another until pay becomes inhumane, that is not a market outcome but the failure of the operator who allows it. The only legitimate benchmark for price is the economic capacity of the client — never the desperation of the poorest in the market. A platform that takes this seriously caps active providers per segment, sets price floors, and bans auctions to the bottom.
3. Full price clarity before acceptance
“No assignment may be accepted unless the price, the commission, all deductions, and the payout date have been fully and clearly disclosed.”
Whoever learns only after the work is done what they are entitled to has not consented — they have been deceived. Transparency before closing is the only form in which an assignment may become a contract. And what has been agreed stays agreed: changes to pay and commission rules must be communicated clearly and in good time before they take effect — whoever twists prices retroactively breaks the contract in the middle of the market.
4. Access to work costs nothing
“Access to work must never cost the worker anything — and a paid premium slot for greater visibility is only fair if it comes with appropriate and corresponding benefits.”
No entry fees, no deposits, no mandatory paid training as a business model — basic participation in the market remains free. A premium slot may cost money. But whoever already pays for visibility must receive that price back, for example through a substantially reduced commission — otherwise the platform unjustly collects twice, once for the slot and once on the earnings. Visibility for money without consideration is pay-to-win, and pay-to-win is the most modern form of the old employment-agency trap.
5. Availability has its price
“Whoever demands binding availability or ties a provider to an assignment must pay for that time; cancellations must follow clear rules established in advance.”
A marketplace cannot guarantee demand, and nobody asks for general waiting time to be paid. But availability that is bound is work: whoever reserves the provider blocks their only merchandise — their time. Unpaid commitment is wage theft in installments. Likewise, a client must not walk away without consequence after the contractor has already sacrificed their time: whoever cancels late under the general rules of the market must pay part or all of the compensation.
6. Revenue is not earnings
“Every platform must make providers' income, deductions, and unpaid service time so visible that they can see their actual profitability.”
Someone who sees a thousand euros in revenue and keeps six hundred is deceived when the platform shows only the thousand. Especially in cost-intensive work — vehicle, fuel, tools — it must be obvious at a glance what remains. A platform that keeps its providers in the dark about their own profitability lives off that darkness.
7. The freedom to say no
“Whoever is self-employed may decline any assignment without algorithmic penalty — and a platform must never disadvantage them, short-term or long-term, for also working on other marketplaces.”
Acceptance quotas that determine ranking and income turn genuine self-employed people into employees without employee rights. True self-employment begins with the right to turn down an assignment without the machine punishing you for it — and it includes the right to work everywhere. Exclusivity without consideration is coercion.
8. Accountability of the algorithm
“Every automated decision on access, visibility, allocation, or exclusion must be justifiable, reviewable, and contestable.”
An algorithm that cannot explain why it makes a person invisible exercises rule without legitimacy. Whoever works on a platform has the right to know by which rules they are ranked.
9. No exclusion without a hearing
“No one may be excluded from the market without grounds, access to the allegations, and the opportunity to respond.”
Deactivation at the push of a button is termination without a labor court. A fair procedure — hearing, human review, reinstatement after wrong decisions — is the minimum a platform must set against its substitute justice. Only in the case of immediate safety risks is a provisional suspension permissible — but it too remains reviewable, is decided promptly by a human, and must never degenerate into a permanent ban without procedure.
10. Data belongs to those who created it
“Data belongs to the person who contributed it. No business model involving third parties may be built on trading data that clients and contractors leave about themselves on the platform.”
The platform may use users' data to operate the market — but never to sell it, rent it, or make it accessible to third parties.
11. Identity on both sides
“On a marketplace for personal services, providers and clients alike must be verified.”
One-sided verification protects only the paying side. Whoever lets a person into their home, their clinic, or their night shift owes both sides the certainty of whom they are dealing with.
12. Safety before performance pressure
“Pay and bonus systems must never push people toward dangerous behavior, and in extreme weather, assaults, or other serious hazards, every assignment must be declinable and abortable without disadvantage.”
A bonus attainable only beyond reason is incitement to self-endangerment. An algorithm that puts speed above human lives has failed. Being able to decline danger without losing ranking or income is not a comfort — it is the price of people coming home unharmed. That includes emergency procedures every provider knows before they need them.
13. Protecting workers is the state's task
“If and to the extent that an intermediary platform cannot generally provide accident and liability insurance itself, legislators must ensure that the contractor's accident insurance is secured through a fair share of the compensation for their work.”
This law addresses not the operator but the legislator: whoever only intermediates cannot insure — but a state that tolerates gig work must not dump its risks privately on the weakest. The contribution to accident insurance belongs, calculable and itemized, in the price of the service. And because gig work rarely stays with a single platform, it is likewise the legislator's task to ensure that acquired entitlements survive a switch or the parallel use of several platforms — without double burden and without coverage gaps. For voluntary liability insurance: the contractor who takes one out may hope for a placement advantage over those who have none — for it protects the client, and that protection has a value of its own.
14. Tax at the source
“The legislator is called upon to create a simplified tax deduction under which the platform directly remits a statutorily fixed flat tax for the smallest providers. This also applies to separately stated social contributions that establish clearly defined entitlements for the provider.”
The self-employed person is fundamentally obliged to pay taxes — the only question is how hard we make it for them. For people who are not equipped for tax and technology matters, withholding at the source is liberation from shackles: what has been withheld has been paid, and the provider can show any authority proof that the tax for precisely this assignment is included and settled. Withheld tax makes nobody dependent — it makes them legal. The same applies to proof of social insurance, which can be shown on a smartphone during inspections. We advocate this model wherever we work — up to and including talks with governments.
15. No artificial hurdles
“Registration and onboarding must be so simple that even someone with no education, whose entire tool is the phone in their hand, can complete them.”
Every platform should bring work to people — especially to those on the lowest rung of society. Every unnecessary hurdle in the sign-up process is a gate closed in front of the poorest. A single digital process for registration, tax registration, and necessary documentation — understandable without advisers, without costs, without legal jargon: that is the difference between a marketplace open to all and an admission machine for the privileged.
16. Honest reviews
“Rating systems must be two-sided, verifiable, and free of retaliation.”
One-sided star rule makes providers hostages to bad moods. Ratings require a counterparty, verifiability, and protection against a defense against an accusation backfiring as a “bad attitude.”
17. Equal access
“Access, visibility, and the awarding of assignments must never depend on origin, gender, age, religion, or appearance.”
An algorithm that learns or accepts discrimination discriminates. The operator bears responsibility for every distortion it does not abolish.
18. Exit without hostage-taking
“Whoever leaves a platform owes nothing beyond outstanding consideration.”
Notice periods and lock-in clauses are the serfdom of the platform economy. A market you cannot freely leave is a cage.
19. The human remains master of the machine
“Technology on a labor marketplace serves the people who work on it — never the other way around.”
Automation should take sales, bureaucracy, and dispatching off the provider's shoulders so they can earn — not optimize, surveil, and replace them. A platform that confuses this has betrayed its mandate.
20. Qualification is a joint task
“Marketplace operators commit to advancing, in cooperation with the respective states, the qualification of the people who offer or wish to offer their services through their platforms.”
The state has the education systems; the platform knows the demand — together the two can turn gig work into a ladder to success and participation instead of a dead end. Whoever profits from a country's work owes that country people who can do more tomorrow than today.
21. Fairness toward the country and its future prospects
“Every platform must commit to fairness toward the country in which the service is performed: value creation, taxes, know-how, and the future prospects of its people must grow through its operations — not be skimmed off by them.”
No country on this earth is a mere supplier of labor. A country in which a platform operates must be better off afterwards than before: with income that stays, with entrepreneurs who grow, with skills that are passed on. Whoever skims a market and leaves nothing behind is not engaged in trade but in plunder.
22. Equal minimum standards for comparable work
“Binding ground rules must apply equally to all comparable business models, so that no competitor buys advantages by circumventing taxes, insurance, or protective duties.”
Knowing and respecting one's responsibility must not be a competitive disadvantage. Whoever pays, insures, and protects honestly will otherwise lose to whoever does not — as long as the market treats both the same. That is why it is not enough that we obey these laws: they must apply to everyone, or the market punishes the decent.
23. Regulation with proportion
“Regulation should follow the actual risk of the activity, solve concrete dangers, and be simple to implement — not follow the label ‘platform work.’”
Passenger transport, delivery, cleaning, care, and digital services carry different risks and need different (protective) standards. The legislator's goal cannot be to abolish every entrepreneurial risk — that would abolish the entrepreneurs along with it. The goal is the combination of fair market participation, effective protection, and economic independence. Whoever regulates with a sledgehammer rarely hits the risks and always hits the smallest.
24. No state doctrine against self-employment
“The state must not blur the line between self-employed and dependent work: whoever uses the platform's or the client's tools, or is required to sign a data protection agreement, does not automatically become an employee for that reason alone.”
Data protection is a duty for everyone who touches personal data — for the self-employed just as for employees. Signing a data protection agreement or working with the client's equipment proves no integration into another's work organization — only that someone takes their duties seriously. When authorities construct bogus self-employment from such circumstances, protective laws turn into intrusion, and data protection into a weapon against self-employment. Drawing the line between self-employed and dependent work — and holding it — is the legislator's task.
25. Tools have their price
“The use of a contractor's own tools must be compensated separately by the marketplace — as a flat rate or as a usage fee that does justice to the specific item.”
Car, phone, tools: whoever works with their own equipment sells not only their time but the substance of their devices. This use must be itemized and paid — through a flat-rate system or a fee appropriate to the specific item. It must never be taken for granted that the contractor provides their own tools free of charge: a wage in which the machine works invisibly without being paid is a disguised price cut at the expense of the weaker party.