The Covid pandemic has drawn new attention to the key importance of personal services for household survival, ranging from food delivery to care services. But all too often such services are provided by precarious workers, often employed via online platforms. Platform work is widespread across Europe and growing rapidly, research funded by the European Foundation for Progressive […]
Social rights for the platform workers
Digital technology in the workplace is often associated with increasing precariousness of work and worsening working conditions. This is perhaps most visible in the platform economy, where online platforms control in detail how workers carry out their tasks, while the latter often lack access to social protection and collective bargaining.
And yet, this is part of a broader trend. Especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, digital technologies and algorithmic management are being deployed across the workforce, risking to further limit worker autonomy. Many of these issues can and should be addressed by applying, tweaking and flexibly interpreting existing labour, social security and data protection rules. But policymakers should also look beyond regulation alone: could they use public platforms to provide more tailored and effective public services to those citizens who need it?
Load more
The labour status of people working in the online platform economy is key to their socio-economic protection. But it has proven a difficult issue for courts and regulators. The EU is considering introducing a ‘rebuttable presumption of employment’ to help address this problem. What could this entail exactly? For some time now, one of the […]
All managerial functions are now entrusted to algorithm-powered tools, raising large expectations and new risks. This trend is not confined to platform work. No economic sector is immune to the adoption of such systems. The EU institutions are engaged in a promising process that may lead to new regulatory solutions, but social dialogue and collective […]
Related articles
Regulating AI: workers’ intellect versus Big Tech oligarchs
If there is any compelling realisation about the protracted attempts in the US and EU to regulate emerging technologies, it is that Big Tech oligarchs do not care about the well-being of the individual, or the workers, the socio-economy or democracy, unless civil society and public authorities force them to do so. Disruption is said […]
Tightening the guardrails for AI
On June 14, the European Parliament took a decisive step towards the adoption of common rules for EU member states on artificial intelligence (AI), approving by a very large majority of 499 votes in favour – and with only 28 against and 93 abstentions –, the negotiating mandate to be taken to the trilogue with […]
Future of work: between global, digital, local and green
The analysis of the future of work is sandwiched between two megatrends. On the one hand, there is the renewed hyper-globalisation in the services sector, reinforced by progress in digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, and on the other hand, there is a relocation of production and services linked to the imperative of the green transformation. Two […]