Abstract
The present study focuses on the figure of gig workers in digital platforms such as Uber or Deliveroo and the necessity for a specific regulation that adjusts to the particularities of these new work relations. The above to prevent the lack of certainty regarding their legal status. Following how courts and tribunals in the UK (common law) have sought to redefine and adequate the concept of subordination and dependence, this work seeks to analyse how those elements have been interpreted to apply or not the regulation of the traditional employment figure to the new work relations that digital platforms have created. These most recent decisions demonstrate that this is not a settled topic. The current tools available to judges are insufficient to provide either certainty or security to gig workers, as this new form of labour relations does not fully present the traditional characteristics of subordination and dependence. However, they also demonstrate the need for effective regulation that responds to the demands and interests of these new workers so as not to discourage the creation of new sources of employment by regulating essential aspects such as social and health security.References
Aloisi, A. (2016). Commoditized workers: Case study research on labor law issues arising from set of on-demand/gig economy platforms. Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal, 37(3), 653–690.
Álvarez, P. & Weidenslaufer, C. (2020). Protección legal a trabajadores de plataformas digitales: Chile y derecho comparado. Https://Obtienearchivo.Bcn.Cl/Obtienearchivo?Id=repositorio/10221/29114/1/Plataformasdigitales._Chile_experiencia_comparada_2020.Pdf.
Cherry, M. & Aloisi, A. (2018). A Critical Examination of a Third Employment Category for On-Demand Work. In Davidson, N., Finck, M. & Infranca, J. (Eds.). Cambridge Handbook of the Law of the Sharing Economy (pp. 316–327). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108255882.024
Cockayne, D. G. (2016). Sharing and neoliberal discourse: The economic function of sharing in the digital on-demand economy. Geoforum, 77, 73–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.10.005
Collins, H. (1990). Independent Contractors and the Challenge of Vertical Disintegration to Employment Protection Laws. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 10(3). Autumn. https://www.jstor.org/stable/764346?seq=1&cid=pdf-
Collins, H., Edwing, K. D. & McColgan, A. (2019). Labour Law (2.° ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Davidov, G. (2017). The Status of Uber Drivers: A Purposive Approach. www.onlabor.org.
de Stefano, V. (2016). The Rise of the Just-in-Time Workforce: On-Demand Work. Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal, 37(3), 471–504.
de Stefano, V. (2017). Labour is not a technology - Reasserting the declaration of Philadelphia in times of Platform-Work and Gig-Economy. IUSLabor, 2, 1–16.
Deakin, S. & Wilkinson, F. (2005). The Law of the Labour Market. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Duggan, J., Sherman, U., Carbery, R. & McDonnell, A. (2020). Algorithmic management and app-work in the gig economy: A research agenda for employment relations and HRM. Human Resource Management Journal, 30, 114–132. https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12258
Ermida Uriarte, Ó. & Hernández, Ó. (2002). Critica a la subordinación, Parte I. Revista Laboral Chilena, 4.
Escorsa, P. (2006). Las revoluciones tecnológicas vistas por Carlota Pérez. El Ciervo: revista mensual de pensamiento y cultura, (660), 19-21.
Fenwick, C. (2016). The concept of the employer de Jeremias Prassl. Revista Internacional del Trabajo, 135(1), 175–178.
Florisson, R. & Mandl, I. (2018). Platform work: Types and implications for work and employment-Literature review Employment and working conditions of selected types of platform work. www.eurofound.europa.eu
Freedland, M. & Prassl, J. (2017). Employees, workers and the ‘sharing economy’ Changing practices and changing concepts in The United Kingdom. Spanish Labour Law and Employment Relations Journal, 6(1–2), 16. https://doi.org/10.20318/sllerj.2017.3922
Harris, S. D. & Krueger, A. B. (2015, December). Proposal for Modernizing Labor Laws for Twenty-First-Century Work: The “Independent Worker”. (Hamilton Project, Discussion Paper 2015-10). Https://Www.Hamiltonproject.Org/Assets/Files/Modernizing_labor_laws_for_twenty_first_century_work_krueger_harris.Pdf.
Koutsimpogiorgos, N., van Slageren, J., Herrmann, A. M. & Frenken, K. (2020). Conceptualizing the Gig Economy and Its Regulatory Problems. Policy and Internet, 12(4), 525–545. https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.237
Lanata Fuenzalida, G. (2009). Contrato Individual de Trabajo (3.a Ed.). Santiago: Legal Publishing Chile.
Mason, L. (2020). Locating unity in the fragmented platform economy: Labor law and the platform economy in the United Kingdom. Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal, 41(2), 329–342.
McKinsey & Company. (2016). Independent Work: Choice, Necessity and the Gig Economy. San Francisco, California: McKinsey Global Institute.
Mercader U., J. (2018). La prestación de servicios en plataformas profesionales: nuevos indicios para una nueva realidad. In Todolí Signes A. - Hernández-Bejarano, M. (dirs.), Trabajo en Plataformas Digitales: innovación, Derecho y mercado (pp. 155–176). Cizur Menor: Aranzadi-Thompson Reuters.
Muñoz, B. (2018). Uber, la subordinación y las fronteras del derecho del trabajo. Algunas ideas para delimitar. Revista Chilena de Derecho Del Trabajo y de La Seguridad Social, 9(17), 13–40.
Plá Rodríguez, A. (1998). Los principios del Derecho del Trabajo (3.° ed.). Buenos Aires: Ediciones Depalma.
Plaza A., J. J., Patiño R., D. & Gómez-Álvarez D., R. (2018). Nuevo contexto para el trabajo: economía de plataformas y liberalismo económico. In Todolí Signes A. - Hernández-Bejarano, M. (dirs.), Trabajo en Plataformas Digitales: Innovación, Derecho y Mercado (pp. 37–62). Cizur Menor: Aranzadi-Thompson Reuters.
Prassl, J. (2015). The concept of the employer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Prassl, J. (2018). Humans as a Service: The Promise and Perils of Work in the Gig Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Prassl, J. & Risak, M. (2016). Uber, Taskrabbit, and co.: Platforms as employers? Rethinking the legal analysis of crowdwork. Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal, 37(3), 619–652.
Rodriguez-Piñero, M. (2019). Trabajo en plataformas: innovaciones jurídicas para unos desafíos crecientes. Revista de Internet, Derecho y Política, 28, 3–16.
Rosenblat, A. & Stark, L. (2016). Algorithmic Labor and Information Asymmetries: A Case Study of Uber’s Drivers. International Journal of Communication, 10. http://ijoc.org.
Sánchez, J. M. (2018). La Uber economy y el fenómeno de la economía colaborativa: el mundo del trabajo en disputa. In Todolí Signes A. - Hernández-Bejarano, M. (dirs.), Trabajo en Plataformas Digitales: innovación, Derecho y mercado (pp. 69–104). Cizur Menor: Aranzadi-Thompson Reuters.
Steinmetz, K. (2016, January 6). Exclusive: See How Big the Gig Economy Really Is. Http://Time.Com/4169532/Sharing-Economy-Poll/.
Taylor, M. (2017). Good Work. The Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/good-work-the-taylor-review-of-modern-working-practices
Thayer Arteaga, W. & Novoa Fuenzalida, P. (2016). Manual del Derecho del Trabajo. Vol. 1 (6ª ed.). Santiago: Editorial Jurídica de Chile.
Todolí-Signes, A. (2017). The End of the Subordinate Worker? The On-Demand Economy, the Gig Economy, and the Need for Protection for Crowdworkers. https://es.linkedin.com/in/
Todolí-Signes, A. (2018). Prólogo. In Aranzandi (Ed.), Trabajo en Plataformas Digitales: innovación, Derecho y mercado. In Todolí Signes A. - Hernández-Bejarano, M. (dirs.), (pp. 27–34). Cizur Menor: Aranzadi-Thompson Reuters.
van Doorn, N. (2017). Platform labor: on the gendered and racialized exploitation of low-income service work in the ‘on-demand’ economy. Information Communication and Society, 20(6), 898–914. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1294194
Willmot, B. (2017, April 3). The Growing Gig Economy. Https://Www.Cipd.Co.Uk/News-Views/Cipd-Voice/Issue-9/Growing-Gig-Economy.
Zekic, N. (2019, July). Contradictory court rulings on the status of Deliveroo workers in the Netherlands. Https://Www.Researchgate.Net/Publication/334304398_Contradictory_court_rulings_on_the_status_of_Deliveroo_workers_in_the_Netherlands.
The authors of the articles published in the Digital Legal Magazine UANDES agree on the terms of publication, distribution, preservation, and content use contemplated in the licence:
This work is under a license of Creative Commons Atribución 4.0 Internacional.