INTRODUCTION

Numerous studies have attempted to analyse the phenomenon of digitalisation from a labour law perspective. The question of whether workers who provide their services through a digital platform (or application) are bound by an employment contract and perform their work in a subordinate relationship continues to both captivate and divide the epistemic community of labour lawyers. The employment contract is often seen to be gateway to the application of labour law. The question that seems to have occupied the majority of authors is whether the relationship between the platform and the worker can be construed as an employment relationship , that is, as a relationship based upon legal subordination .

It is therefore the individual relationship that is highlighted. This concern is probably explained by the aforementioned idée fixe that a worker can only gain access to the application of labour law through the employment contract. However, collective labour relations and their fragmentary legal institutionalisation actually predate the invention of the employment contract .

The relationship between platform workers taken collectively and the platform, conditioned by their ability to organise, to defend and promote their interests, is often overlooked. It is more or less a no-brainer to state that the law of industrial relations in many countries is modelled on an industrialised society. But are its legal categories so fossilised and impermeable that they risk to obscure a new mode of work organisation, or are they sufficiently lively or auto-poetic to allow platform workers to resist ?

This question cannot be developed exhaustively, or even systematically, in the context of this chapter. It will focus on the human rights that constitute the foundations of collective labour relations law enshrined in high-profile legal instruments (constitutions, international and European charters). The issue will also be addressed and illustrated on the basis of provisions of Belgian and French labour law. It is therefore right to speak of fundamental rights. These human rights are the freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, the right to collective action and the right to information and consultation .