IPS Journal (24.03.2023) Excessive reliance on algorithmic management has raised concerns regarding its opaque decision-making mechanisms and implication for workers
IPS Journal (21.01.2023) This year will be a crucial year for the platform economy. After the European Commission’s proposal on improving working conditions in platform work in December 2021 and long discussions in the European Parliament and Council in 2022, this year, the directive might be finally adopted – potentially impacting the lives of millions.
In the volatile and crisis-ridden European economic context, online work has grown in popularity through the adoption of technology that can help organise work, and manage and monitor workers. According to the ETUI report published in February, Juggling Online Gigs with Offline Jobs, online roles are more prevalent in European regions where there are very few opportunities to get into traditional jobs.
euobserver.com (08.03.2023) A new report published by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) highlights how platform work could be exacerbating inequality growing in the European labour market, and especially within member states themselves. Basically, it examined if regions with low availability of quality offline jobs led to more people taking more precarious online jobs. In the volatile and crisis-ridden European economic context, online work has grown in popularity through the adoption of technology that can help organise work, and manage and monitor workers.
europeandatajournalism.eu (27.03.2023) Delivery, transport, but also business services: more and more workers are opting for self-employed status by using online platforms to obtain assignments. This is a common phenomenon throughout the European Union.
The book deals with the phenomenon of platform work and contains national reports (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom), other more transversal reports dealing with the issue of fundamental (collective) workers' rights, as well as the applicable European legal framework. The idea of the book is to underline differences and similarities between the Member States' Systems and the UK System and to understand if there is a common ground of rights and protections for platform workers in the EU.
This module stresses specific challenges for the extension of social security to workers in new forms of employment, particularly platform workers, and explores some policy options, based on international experience and guided by ILO social security standards.
The European Parliament reached a deal on the platform workers’ directive, pending confirmation by the Employment and Social Affairs Committee on 12 December.
The deal is the outcome of months of lengthy negotiations on the platform workers’ directive, which seeks for the most part to clarify platform workers’ employment status.
“There is a deal, and I am very happy about it,” Elisabetta Gualmini, the left-wing lawmaker spearheading the directive, told EURACTIV.
euobserver.com (19.01.2023) Self-employed or employed? This question is at the heart of the negotiations of the proposal for an EU directive on improving the conditions of platform workers.
Home-delivery riders, or Uber-style app drivers are some of those who compose a sector estimated by the EU Commission to employ more than 28 million people. The number has been growing for years, and is expected to keep rising, reaching 43 million workers in the next two years.
EURACTIV.com (02.02.2023) After months of arduous negotiations, the much-debated and politically sensitive platform workers’ file was finally approved in plenary on Thursday (2 February), with 376 in favour and 212 against. The text enshrines a legal presumption of employment for self-employed platform workers and reinforces workers’ rights and protection in the face of algorithmic management.
socialeurope.eu (13.01.2022) After several reports by the labour inspectorate and contradictory judgments by the courts, in September 2020 the Supreme Court finally ruled that platform workers were employees and not self-employed workers—and that, therefore, the labour and social-security rights applying to all other workers had to apply to them as well.
ilo.org (05.01.2022) Digital labour platforms are now a vital part of contemporary life—they allow us to arrange a ride, order food and access a host of other services online. They accomplish this by connecting clients or customers with workers who undertake these tasks or “gigs”. The past decade has seen the global rise of “gig workers” or “platform workers”, with platforms like Uber, Gojek, Deliveroo, Rappi, Upwork and Topcoder. Digital labour platforms have created unprecedented opportunities for workers, businesses and society by unleashing innovation on a massive global scale.
The OECD Forum Network (13.12.2021) How can workers in the gig economy be better protected against severe shocks and adverse working conditions?
thenews.com.pk (19.12.2021) Misclassification deprives platform workers of the right to minimum wage
The OECD Forum Network (13.12.2021) How can workers in the gig economy be better protected against severe shocks and adverse working conditions?
EURACTIV.com (09.12.2021) The EU will propose a set of criteria on Thursday (9 December) to determine whether a gig worker in Europe using platforms like Uber, Bolt or Deliveroo should be considered an employee. The proposal by the EU executive is an effort to sort out once and for all the employment status of millions of drivers and delivery people that the major platforms insist are self-employed. The debate has clogged up courts across Europe for almost a decade, with judges handing out more than a hundred decisions across the bloc’s 27 member states, with hundreds more still pending.
euractiv (19.11.2021) The European Commission, which is due to present its proposal on platform workers on 8 December, faces a tricky balancing act: ensuring decent working conditions while maintaining the flexibility of a booming sector.
CEPS (14.06.2021) Digitalisation is not only changing the nature of jobs, workplaces and skills development, but also the way work is allocated. Digital labour platforms (DLPs) are driving innovation in the allocation of work. Check out the latest landscape, trends, and impact on working conditions. The report aims to improve the available data on platform work in the EU.
EURACTIV.com (12.03.2021) Spain’s government announced a deal that will recognise riders working for delivery firms such as Deliveroo and UberEats as salaried staff following complaints about their working conditions — a first in the EU. The move came six months after Spain’s leftwing government pledged to clarify the legal status of couriers working for online delivery firms, saying they should be considered employees rather than “gig” workers.
socialeurope.eu (20.04.2021) 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 European Union is considering introducing a ‘rebuttable presumption of employment’ to help address this problem. What could this entail exactly?
EURACTIV.com (12.02.2021) Spain’s labour ministry, trade unions, and employer’s associations have agreed this week in principle to a law improving the rights of food delivery workers employed by global digital platforms like Deliveroo, granting them the status of “permanent staff” instead of self-employed.
The Indian Express (02.02.2021) The Budget for 2021-22 (April-March) also proposes to launch a portal that would collect relevant information on gig economy workers, including those working in building and construction, among others.
German Government (20.01.2021) Thanks to the Act for the Digital Modernisation of Care and Nursing on January 20th, 2021, midwives and other healthcare professionals will in future be able to offer telemedicine services, and will be paid for these. In addition, it is to become easier to use e-prescriptions, even internationally. Besides this, a brief patient file is to be created, meaning that patients will be able to share important information with their doctors even if they are in another EU member state.
