The Platform Economy and Social Law: Key Issues in Comparative Perspective

Working in the Context of Austerity

“…Finally, on a more general note, to emphasize that platform labour is primarily migrant and minority labour matters insofar as it recalibrates the parameters for a critical discussion about how and to what extent 'the gig economy' exerts a downward pull on labour conditions and erodes the norms, standards and protections scaffolding 'regular employment' (for example, Daugareilh et al, 2019). While certainly not denying such dynamics, I believe that claims regarding the degradation of labour by gig platforms tend to mobilize a comparative frame of reference that has little bearing on the everyday circumstances of many gig workers and indeed is increasingly belied by the practices and logics of neoliberal labour-market governance.…”

Riders, Rights and Collective Action

“…From a historical perspective of capitalism, many, if not all, of the organisational work practices of the platforms are not genuinely novel [5,16]. Breaking up jobs into small, low-skilled, repetitive tasks, home-based production practices, the 'putting out' system, on-demand work, piecework, intermediary-based business models, etc., were part and parcel of early capitalism in Western Europe up to the 19th century and remain common in the global South until today.…”

“…Although they work for the firm, they only have a marginal role… The transformation (or hybridisation) of a traditional company into a digital platform means nothing less than the abandonment of the whole field of employment relations by the entrepreneur. A platform is nothing more than a marketplace for services, in which there is no place for labour laws and social security ( [16]: 21,27).…”

Becoming a Platform in Europe: On the Governance of the Collaborative Economy

“…The worker protection system is tightly connected with the social security protection (Daugareilh et al, 2019). Some have suggested that the social protection model of the future should move away from the current emphasis on professional activities (Risak and Dullinger, 2018) and instead be focused on individuals throughout their lifetime, with a view to making career trajectories more secure in a word of discontinuity (Aloisi, 2016).…”