Legal Certainty and the Position of Driver-Partners in the Digital Platform Ecosystem
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59261/jlsp.v4i4.186Keywords:
Digital Platform Partner, Employment Relationship, Micro-Businesses, MSMEs, Ius Constituendum, Online TransportationAbstract
Background:The rapid growth of online ride-hailing platforms in Indonesia has produced millions of driver-partners whose working arrangements do not fully align with existing legal categories. Prevailing debate tends to frame platform partners within an employment relationship under Law Number 13 of 2003 on Manpower. This study argues that such an approach is conceptually flawed, since not all elements of an employment relationship, particularly wages and command/subordination, are cumulatively satisfied in the partner-platform relation.
Methods:Using a normative juridical method with conceptual, statutory, and comparative approaches, this article demonstrates that digital platform partners are, in fact, more accurately constructed as micro-business actors as defined under Law Number 20 of 2008 on MSMEs, given that they own their own operational assets, provide services directly to consumers, are free to accept or reject orders, and independently bear business risk.
Results:The implication of this reconstruction is that MSME regulation, particularly Government Regulation Number 7 of 2021 and existing partnership schemes, offers a more relevant legal basis for protecting platform partners than the Manpower Law.
Conclusion:The article concludes by formulating a direction for ius constituendum, namely the need to recognize the category of "platform partner" as a sub-category of micro-business actor equipped with minimum social security and fair partnership standards
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