The research discusses the different varieties of platform work, exploring the defining features of platform work in terms of prevalence, socio-demographic characteristics, algorithmic management and working conditions. The Report presents the following features:

· Socio-demographic characteristics: platform workers are predominantly men, younger than traditional workers, more educated than the usual workforce and very often have migrant status.

· Algorithmic management: digital labour platforms use algorithmic control to direct, evaluate and exercise disciplinary power over platform.

· Propensity to be misclassified as self-employed.

· Certain precarious working conditions: platform workers face a higher risk of precarity, are more exposed to the risk of overtime and tend to work under irregular and atypical working time schedules; they have higher exposure to psychosocial and physical risks.

The research also compares national actions responding to this phenomenon in a number of selected countries (Finland, Germany, Hungary and Spain), showing that there are no significant differences in the legal definition of dependent employment. In the four countries, labour protection has developed around the traditional definition of employee, and the gap between these protections and those of the self-employed is substantial.

Finally, it proposes a legal response, aiming to improve labour rights and social protections for platform workers and other non-standard workers.

The EU definition of worker has been elaborated by combining the main elements of the concept of worker under EU law (as established along the years by the rulings of the European Union Court of Justice) with key scholarly contributions highlighting the main problems underlying the classification of workers, with a special focus on new and non-standard forms of work.

On this basis, a worker under EU law could be defined as ‘A natural person who, for a certain period of time, performs services for and under the direction of another person and/or integrated in the organisation of another person in return for remuneration. The employer’s direction and/or organisational power can also be carried out through algorithms and any other technology, which also has to comply with the recognized labour rights of the worker, including the right to information. Activities so small as to be purely marginal and ancillary are excluded from the definition. In any case, a worker under EU law’ is a person that is engaged by another to provide personal labour, unless that person is genuinely operating a business on their own account. In case of legal action for the recognition of an employment relationship under EU law, all the circumstances have to be taken into consideration.’

In order to effectively guarantee minimum standards of rights for all workers and the conditions for a fair and competitive internal market, the research considers also crucial to extend the rights recognised in all directives to workers falling under this proposed EU worker definition.

The regulation of platform work has become a prominent topic in the European Union (EU) policy agenda. As we reported in our previous article, in February 2021, the European Commission launched the first-stage consultation of European social partners on how to improve the working conditions for people working through digital labour platforms. The purpose of this first-stage consultation of social partners, which ended on 7 April 2021, was to invite the views of European social partners on the need and direction of possible EU actions to improve the working conditions in platform work.

In June 2021, the Commission launched a second-stage consultation of European social partners to discuss possible content and relevant EU instruments for the envisaged Commission proposal aiming to improve platform workers’ working conditions, which ended on 15 September 2021.

In response to the second-stage consultation, on the Employers’ side, BusinessEurope has expressed its agreement with the overall objective of the commission, i.e., to ensure that people working through platforms have decent working conditions, while supporting the sustainable growth of digital labour platforms in the EU. In general, they have also agreed with the more specific objectives, but with some important caveats (i.e the the overall objective towards re-classifying all platform workers as employees; releasing trade secrets or commercially sensitive information, such as algorithms, to the public as it seems to be disproportionate in achieving transparency; the use of the general terminology of platform work, as this is misleading, among others. (See complete response of BusinessEurope to the 2nd stage Social Partner consultation on improving working conditions of platform workers).

The Commission will take into account the results of this consultation for its further work on an EU initiative to improve the working conditions in platform work.