Conference Agenda

In China, where workers are classified as employees or independent contractors, the emergence of platform employment raises awkward questions regarding this dichotomy. Although platform companies impose certain controls over the labour process and determine the remuneration standard for each order filled, the platform worker also enjoys increased job flexibility, such as the choice of when and where to work. Due to this flexibility, platform companies tend to treat workers as independent contractors. Consequently, platform workers cannot obtain the rights generally accorded to regular employees, such as minimum wage and worker's compensation benefits.

This article collects all lawsuits filed by food delivery riders regarding their employee status, summarizes how judges analyse the reasons while deciding a case, and investigates what determinants affect the decision using the logistic regression method.

The study results reveal that judgments reflect a combination of legal formalism and pragmatism. Legal formalism indicates judges make decisions according to the rules. Judges usually use a syllogism to adjudicate cases: in this case, the rule is the employee status identification rule, the facts include not only the rider's freedom to decide when and where to work but also details of the control exerted on them, and the legal conclusion is the outcome of applying the rule to the facts. Meanwhile, pragmatism entails that judges must also consider the consequences of their judicial decisions. This study found that, after controlling factors such as the location of the court, judges are more likely to grant injured riders employee status. The reason may be that judges understand injured riders are in greater need of worker compensation benefits than are non-injured riders. Therefore, judges are more likely to grant employee status to this group at their discretion.

From a comparative perspective, the adjudication practice in China can provide a reference for countries that adopt a dichotomy in employment status identification. In particular, judges in China have examined many adjudication factors, which could guide the identification of a platform worker’s employee status.

Actors in the world of work, business and the state are experimenting with new employment regulations to face the challenges of technological disruption (Levesque et al., 2020). Non-state actors have been actively involved in lobbying and framing persuading narratives, opening up questions on how these actors colonise different regulatory spaces within the state.

Drawing on these debates, this study aims to understand how state and non-state actors shape regulation in the case of Chile, the first country in Latin America to enact a new law in 2022 on digital platform work. Act N° 21.431 amends the Labour Code by introducing the figure of the "independent worker", which means that the labour statute can now regulate non-labour contracts. Incumbents can, in theory, freely choose the type of employment arrangement they want to join, although the degree of social protection is lower for self-employed. The new policy is seen by some as a ground-breaking development, while for others it is merely a pro-business regulation, circumventing the problem of employment classification.

This work-in-progress explores these regulatory changes based on a qualitative methodology that draws on various sources: +20 interviews with relevant industrial relations actors plus a large number of documentary sources, from records of public hearings, press, drafts of bills, policy reports, among others.

The analysis so far shows that the regulatory debate takes place in a political context of social turmoil though the collective actors in industrial relations are particularly weakened. This has given rise to a juridified debate that, in turn, restricts the discussion in the political arena. However, as the new regulation is placed within the labour code, it opens up a great opportunity for the Labour Inspection to enforce compliance with minimum standards. In this debate, platforms argue that the Inspection exceeds its powers, while trade unions and government seek to empower the state agency.

Findings indicate that the Chilean case is a clear example of how the state increases regulations over employment, not by changing the core of the standard employment relationship but by redrawing the margins between work and non-work (Howell, 2019). Moreover, the study shows that the state does not intervene in a unitary way, as it also creates the conditions for renewed actors' resilience. This pressure motivates the Labour Inspection to adopt a more aggressive enforcement strategy, although it faces political tensions that threaten to limit inspection activities and ultimately the scope of regulation itself.

The contribution deals with enforcement instruments for data privacy on digital labour platforms. It will present the results of an empirical and legal study on data handling by German, U.S. and Chinese crowdsourcing portals.

Crowdsourcing platforms have grown rapidly worldwide as new marketplaces for labour. Crowdsourcing commonly refers to the outsourcing of corporate tasks that have traditionally been performed by internal employees to an undefined group of Internet users (the „crowdworkers“). The importance of digital work such as crowdwork has further increased in times of the Corona pandemic.

The rise of platforms poses serious challenges to decent work. A major concern in this regard is ensuring data privacy and security. Privacy challenges through crowdsourcing include risks of de-anonymisation attacks, data theft or misuse. In addition, there are specific risks for worker privacy. In particular, platforms collect personal information for the matching of customers, tasks and crowd workers. Furthermore, they employ opaque AI-based managerial algorithms for monitoring and evaluating worker behaviour.

The contribution will address the following research questions: (1) To what extent do platforms from Germany, the USA and China collect, process and transfer personal and sensitive data of crowdworkers? (2) How is data collected and used to monitor and control work processes? (3) To what extent do platforms take self-initiative precautions (e.g. data protection seals, audits) to implement data protection and data security? (4) What legal flanking measures are needed at European and international level to make data protection rights on labour platforms more effective?

The main methodological instrument used to answer the research questions is an evaluation of all privacy policies available on the websites of German, U.S. and Chinese crowdsourcing service providers. The privacy policies provide information on data handling as well as on self-regulatory protection measures of platforms. In the legal section, current legal policy proposals at the EU level that address privacy aspects (European Commission's proposal for a Directive on platform work (2021); EU Artificial Intelligence Act (2021)) are examined against the background of the findings. Furthermore, existing ILO instruments and initiatives on workers' data rights are discussed.

Based on meaningful empirical data, our research proves that platforms from Germany, the USA and China use and monetize personal data on a large scale. As will be shown, a public-private policy mix is the most appropriate instrument to ensure effective data protection for workers in the global platform economy.

Digital platforms are now part of our everyday lives (Uber, Airbnb…). Platform workers have diverse statuses, labour, social protection and collective bargaining rights, which are just starting to be regulated by States and the EU.

This contribution aims at assessing the new EU package on platform work in light of the principle of universality and its application in three countries (Sweden, France and Spain) thanks to a comparative and interdisciplinary analysis.

The EU package includes inter alia the Directive proposal on platform workers’ working conditions and the Guidelines on solo self-employed persons’ collective agreements. These texts must be analysed in light of the principle of universality.

Universality is a concept which pinpoints social protection systems but which must also be applied to labour law rights. Since Bismarck and Beveridge, one wonders if social rights should be attributed to workers on the basis of their work, or to individuals/ citizens because of their belonging to society or simply their Human dignity. Theoretical works (Marshall’s social citizenship, 1950; Marzo, 2022; Ratti, 2023) and regulatory calls in international (ILO) and EU contexts (Recommendation 8/12/19) call for a deeper reflexion. Because of the new digital context, we suggest its transposition beyond social protection to labour law and collective bargaining issues.

Is universality a way to end differences created by legal statuses between workers and specifically digital platform workers? Is it a social citizenship standard or net upon which social differences are admissible? How are statuses to be articulated with universality? What (digital) labour rights can/should be universal?

The method chosen here is based on the crossing of interdisciplinary and comparative research. From a legal perspective, analyses led by legal scholars in Sweden, Spain and France assess the diverse and evolving national labour laws and caselaws to propose a reinterpretation of the EU texts. From a sociological perspective, multi-sited interviews allow a special focus is on domestic platform work, contrasting it with transportation/delivery platform work.

This contribution suggests a new understanding of universality and of its relevance in the contemporary world. It assesses the European texts in light of this philosophical aim, questioning the rationales behind them and proposing a new interpretation. It identifies a need to reregulate EU labour law. It calls for a new structured coherent body of “EU digital labour law”, renewing decent work in the field of digital platforms and Artificial Intelligence. It also presents new data on domestic platform workers.