On 3 February 2023, the Ministry of Manpower (“MOM“) announced that it has formed the Platform Workers Work Injury Compensation Network (“PWIN“). This follows from the Government’s acceptance in November 2022 of all 12 recommendations detailed in the Advisory Committee on Platform Workers (“Committee“) report titled “Strengthening Protection for Platform Workers” (“Report“). A key recommendation in the Report was ensuring adequate financial protection for platform workers in case of work injury. To fulfil this key recommendation the Committee recommended:
(a) Requiring platform companies to provide platform workers with the same scope and level of work injury compensation as those employees covered by the Work Injury Compensation Act (“WICA“) are entitled to;
(b) Requiring the platform company that the platform worker was working for at the point of injury to be responsible for compensation, based on the platform worker’s total earnings from the platform sector in which the injury was sustained;
(c) Determining sector-specific definitions of when a platform worker is considered “at work”; and
(d) Retaining the strengths of the current WICA regime, including the provision of work injury compensation insurance through the existing open insurance market.
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