Law

How to protect workers' rights in the era of digital intelligence: Breaking the "algorithmic black box" and making workers' rights visible and clear

2026-03-11   

This case left a deep impression on me. "While listening to the report on the work of the Supreme People's Court, Yang Weikun, the dean of Hebei University of Finance, expressed special attention to the case of" unreasonable assessment and dismissal of employees in accordance with the law "mentioned in the report. In the case, employee Yu was dismissed by the company for working continuously for more than 8 hours and taking a 3-minute nap with his eyes closed, and was ultimately found by the court to have illegally terminated his labor contract. Cases such as' being dismissed after closing eyes for 3 minutes' have sparked in-depth discussions among representatives and committee members on the risks of new rights and interests under digital labor management. The representatives pointed out that such cases reflect the reality of some enterprises abusing their management power and ignoring the legitimate rights and interests of workers, and the opacity of algorithms has to some extent led to problems such as recruitment discrimination, unfair salary, and excessive exploitation of labor time. This dilemma is particularly prominent among the new employment forms of workers - food delivery riders are fined unreasonably due to algorithms, and ride hailing drivers are forced to take orders by algorithms in disguise. Among them, the lack of transparency in income distribution rules has become one of the main concerns of workers regarding the operation of algorithms. As a taxi driver with over 20 years of experience, Yin Qilong, the team leader of Yubei Branch of Chongqing Taxi Co., Ltd., has a genuine understanding of this. He calculated that the commission for an order subcontracted by a platform could reach 35% or even 40%. The platform's commission ratio should be open and transparent. "He called on the platform to proactively display core algorithm information such as order pricing, commission rules, reward and punishment standards to drivers, so that the composition of each income can be" calculated and seen clearly ". The representative committee analyzed that the many difficulties faced by workers are largely due to the lack of transparency in algorithmic rules. In December 2025, the research group of members from the All China Federation of Trade Unions of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference went to Guangdong to conduct a survey on the development of artificial intelligence and the protection of workers' labor rights and interests. The survey results showed that artificial intelligence is profoundly reshaping production models and labor relations. Artificial intelligence technology, while driving industrial upgrading and job innovation, and improving labor management efficiency, also poses new challenges to traditional rights protection models. Among them, how to ensure algorithm transparency and fairness, achieve a balance between efficiency improvement and worker rights protection, has become an urgent issue to be solved in building harmonious labor relations in the era of artificial intelligence. Member Yang Junri, former Minister of the Social Liaison Department of the All China Federation of Trade Unions, pointed out that under multiple pressures, many riders increase traffic risks in order to rush, and working more than ten hours a day has become the norm, forcing health to give way to "efficiency first". He suggested that the main responsibility of platform enterprises should be strengthened, and platform enterprises should be required to publicly disclose algorithm rules, scientifically set employment time limits, provide necessary free training and high-quality protective equipment, implement occupational health examinations, and safeguard the physical and mental health of workers. The lack of transparency in algorithm rules leads to implicit exploitation of workers. However, the new forms of employment for workers are mostly individualized and decentralized, making it difficult to form a collective force for safeguarding their rights. ”Representative Yang Weikun stated that efforts should be made to build a multi-party governance mechanism for algorithms, with the core being to "expose" the algorithm rules. She suggested that platform companies can be required to register algorithm rules related to workers' rights, such as order allocation, performance evaluation, reward and punishment mechanisms, and compensation calculation, with the human resources and social security department or industry regulatory department, and publicize them to workers in a prominent position on the platform. At the same time, an algorithm adjustment notification mechanism should be established, and the platform should inform workers and explain the reasons before changing the algorithm rules. Member Su Bin, former Minister of the Rights and Interests Protection Department of the All China Federation of Trade Unions, believes that the collective bargaining system is a direct and effective way to safeguard the rights and interests of workers and promote win-win labor relations between both parties. It is crucial to promote algorithm negotiation in the face of new challenges brought by algorithms. He suggested that in response to the most concerning issues for workers, such as the complexity of AI algorithm compensation system elements and opaque rules, government departments should strengthen the filing supervision and legality review of enterprise compensation systems. On the basis of evaluating the impact of the salary system on the labor intensity, safety, and health of workers, efforts are made to establish reasonable and fair labor compensation algorithm rules through collective negotiation, especially through democratic procedures such as the approval of collective contract drafts by the workers' (representatives') congress. It is gratifying that in the past year, the All China Federation of Trade Unions has taken solid steps in promoting algorithmic negotiation and safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of workers in new forms of employment. Guide and promote the comprehensive collective negotiation of algorithms and labor rules among 15 platform enterprises, benefiting over 20 million people. The negotiation revolves around core rules such as order prices and commission rates, and promotes multiple platforms to clarify that labor remuneration should not be lower than the local minimum hourly wage, establish subsidies for severe weather, etc., so that the rights and interests of workers can move from being "blurred" by algorithms to being "calculated clearly". Some local trade unions have also explored beneficial experiences, such as the Hangzhou Federation of Trade Unions building a multi-party collaborative pattern, focusing on core issues such as dispatching pricing and income security, and conducting algorithmic consultations and discussions with leading platform enterprises to promote optimization of rules. Yan Jinghua, former Vice Chairman and Secretary of the Secretariat of the All China Federation of Trade Unions, put forward suggestions from the perspective of building a governance system: we should accelerate the construction of an artificial intelligence collaborative governance system, establish a coordination mechanism for artificial intelligence governance and labor rights protection composed of multiple departments such as human resources and social security, cyberspace, industry and information technology, market supervision, and trade unions, regularly consult and judge, and prevent risks in advance. Timely release work guidelines around key issues such as algorithm governance and data ownership verification. At the same time, we will strengthen the supervision of artificial intelligence algorithms, establish a compliance review and filing mechanism for algorithms, and strictly prohibit the use of algorithms to implement unreasonable dispatching and other behaviors that harm the rights and interests of workers. (New Society)

Edit:Jiajia Responsible editor:Chenjie

Source:https://www.workercn.cn/

Special statement: if the pictures and texts reproduced or quoted on this site infringe your legitimate rights and interests, please contact this site, and this site will correct and delete them in time. For copyright issues and website cooperation, please contact through outlook new era email:lwxsd@liaowanghn.com

Recommended Reading Change it

Links