The Platform Economy: Opportunities and Challenges

The responsibility of business enterprises to respect and uphold fundamental labor rights and standards is firmly entrenched in the business and human rights framework.Footnote ¹ However, the increasing prevalence of non-standard forms of workFootnote ² has presented new challenges in efforts to ensure that businesses provide conditions of work that align with the fundamental rights of workers. The rise of the gig economy, and in particular the platform economy, is a prime example in this regard.Footnote ³ An ever-increasing reliance on digital labor platforms like Uber, Lyft, and Deliveroo by consumers and workers alike has brought to the fore questions surrounding the nature and classification of the relationship between workers and the corporations operating these platforms, as well as the rights, benefits, and protections to which platform workers are entitled.

There can be no doubt that the platform economy has brought numerous benefits. It provides consumers greater choice and flexibility in seeking out and acquiring goods and services, and in turn offers workers greater flexibility and convenience by allowing them to balance work with other commitments such as study or family responsibilities. Digital labor platforms also afford more income-generating opportunities to a broader range of workers, including many groups that tend to be marginalized in, or excluded from, the traditional labor market, such as women, people with disabilities, young people, and migrants.

However, with these benefits have come several significant challenges, particularly when it comes to securing the rights of workers and preventing exploitation. Many such challenges stem from the fact that platform companies have routinely sought to capitalize on legal lacunae in domestic frameworks in order to classify persons performing work for them as independent contractors, rather than employees. As a consequence, platform workers are routinely denied the basic rights, protections, and benefits that accompany employee status under domestic labor law.Footnote ⁴ Beyond this, platform workers are often subject to long working hours in highly competitive contexts, and may struggle to find ongoing and secure work.Footnote ⁵ Further, occupational health and safety problems tend to be rife in many types of platform work, particularly ride-sharing and delivery services, and in many cases are exacerbated by a lack of training and the pressures that come from income being so directly linked to completing tasks.Footnote ⁶

Other challenges include the difficulties platform workers face in unionizing and engaging in collective action, for both legal and practical reasons.Footnote ⁷ A further concern is the privacy and data protection implications of using online platforms to process, transmit, and store large quantities of workers’ personal data,Footnote ⁸ as well as the use of artificial intelligence and algorithmic systems to make decisions about matters affecting workers.Footnote ⁹ With respect to artificial intelligence, digital labor platforms’ use of algorithmic systems to make decisions about task allocation, complaint resolution, and account suspension and deactivation raises serious concerns. This includes questions of fairness and transparency, the risk of improper discrimination or differentiation between particular workers, and whether impacted workers are able to challenge decisions and access a remedy in appropriate cases.Footnote ¹⁰

Trade Union Involvement in Platform Economy Litigation

In addition to featuring prominently in the work of the International Labour Organization,Footnote ¹¹ regional organizations,Footnote ¹² and domestic legislatures,Footnote ¹³ over the last decade these issues have been litigated in hundreds of cases brought against platform companies before courts and tribunals across the globe.

From employment (mis)classification to algorithmic decision making, each of the challenges identified above has been the subject of legal contestation. In many such cases, trade unions have played a significant role. This includes directly bringing or intervening in claims against platform companies, organizing or recruiting claimants, offering financial, practical, legal, or logistical support, and raising awareness. The resources and expertise that unions can draw upon or offer individual workers or groups of workers in mounting these challenges have been instrumental in securing major victories for platform workers around the world.

Union involvement in cases of this nature is a rational extension of their representational function and mandate to protect workers’ interests. It can offer several distinct strategic advantages that enhance both the efficacy and broader impact of such efforts.

First, as direct representatives of workers, unions are uniquely positioned to gather information and evidence of potential legal violations, which can help to overcome the significant information and power asymmetries that exist between individual workers and platform companies. Their institutional capacity to collect data and document patterns of non-compliance and connections with workers and other actors allow them to construct sophisticated case strategies and more robust evidentiary bases than any individual worker could. Second, unions typically possess greater financial and logistical resources than individual workers, which assist them in pursuing complex and sometimes protracted strategic litigation. Their familiarity with the legal marketplace, established relationships with members of the profession and ability to engage expert advisors all contribute to a higher level of professionalization and sustainability in mounting legal challenges.

Third, unions are relatively insulated from the forms of retaliation that individual workers might face. In the platform economy, where employment status is precarious and algorithmic management systems can unilaterally deactivate or terminate the accounts of workers, this insulation is particularly significant: it enables legal action without exposing individual claimants to undue personal or economic risk.Footnote ¹⁴ Finally, the public profile and visibility that trade unions enjoy enable them to garner awareness and frame litigation as part of a broader campaign for accountability and fairness in digital labor markets.Footnote ¹⁵ Their ability to attract media attention and mobilize public opinion can amplify the reputational pressure that litigation carries for digital labor platforms, encouraging not only compliance with legal outcomes but also voluntary changes to corporate practices. Taken together, these advantages demonstrate that union participation in platform economy strategic litigation is not merely instrumental, but transformative. It has the potential to shift the balance of power between platforms and workers, and embed individual disputes within a wider struggle for policy and legislative change and structural reform.

Trade Unions’ Roles in Platform Economy Strategic Litigation

Having outlined the strategic rationale for trade union involvement in litigation relating to the platform economy, it is useful to turn to the specific forms such involvement may take. The nature and extent of trade union involvement have varied considerably across cases and jurisdictions, reflecting different strategic choices, institutional capacities and political climates (both internal and external). However, it can be broadly categorized into five main forms: (1) directly bringing claims; (2) intervening in, joining or otherwise supporting claims brought by platform workers or other entities; (3) organizing and recruiting claimants for strategic test cases; (4) providing diverse forms of financial, practical, legal, or logistical support to claimants; and (5) raising public awareness through media engagement and coalition building. Understanding these different modes of engagement is essential to appreciating the multifaceted role that unions play in advancing platform workers’ rights through the courts.

The most direct and visible form of trade union involvement in platform worker litigation occurs when unions themselves initiate legal proceedings against platform companies. This can be done in one of two ways, with the union either acting as a representative entity of workers (where procedural rules relating to standing permit) or directly promoting a claim to enforce its own rights. Acting as the primary litigant can offer various strategic advantages to unions. It enables them to leverage their institutional resources, legal expertise, and collective standing to contest practices that affect multiple workers or raise broader systemic issues.Footnote ¹⁶ In this way, it also allows them to maintain greater control over case strategy, framing legal issues in ways that advance broader labor rights objectives and benefit entire categories of platform workers rather than specific individuals. Such an approach may also overcome some practical impediments to bringing proceedings that individual workers face, such as limited resources, a lack of understanding of legal rights, or a fear of retaliation.

Various examples of this mode of involvement can be identified from jurisdictions around the world. In the Netherlands, the Federation of the Dutch Trade Movement, a national trade union federation, has filed a series of legal claims against online food delivery platform Deliveroo on behalf of its riders relating to matters spanning from social protection rights to employment classification. While the former claim was unsuccessful,Footnote ¹⁷ the latter proceedings resulted in the Supreme Court finding that, rather than independent contractors, Deliveroo riders were properly classified as employees and entitled to various rights and protections under Dutch labor law.Footnote ¹⁸

Similar victories were achieved in the Philippines in the context of a claim brought by an informal workers’ group, the Davao United Delivery Riders Association, before the National Labor Relations Commission. The case led to a ruling that delivery riders for online food delivery company Foodpanda were in an employment relationship with the platform and were therefore entitled to particular benefits and rights.Footnote ¹⁹ In the United Kingdom, the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain launched proceedings before the Central Arbitration Committee seeking recognition by Deliveroo as an entity entitled to conduct collective bargaining on behalf of riders for the platform in certain areas of London,Footnote ²⁰ unsuccessfully arguing its claim as far as the Supreme Court.Footnote ²¹ And in India, a still-pending claim brought by the Indian Federation of App-Based Transport Workers against government entities and various digital labor platforms, including Ola, Uber, Swiggy, and Zomato, seeks recognition of workers for these platforms as employees under social security laws and other labor laws so as to secure various employment-related benefits and rights.Footnote ²²

Beyond directly initiating proceedings, a second way that unions have been involved in platform worker litigation is by intervening in or joining claims brought by workers or other entities. This form of involvement allows unions to support workers’ claims while remaining in a secondary position, either by formally joining proceedings as a party, intervening as an interested stakeholder, or submitting an amicus curiae brief. In addition to circumventing requirements of standing, participation of this kind enables unions to contribute their resources, expertise, and collective voice to advance workers’ interests and broader systemic objectives without bearing the full responsibility and costs associated with initiating litigation. It also maintains the agency and autonomy of the primary claimants.

This form of involvement can be identified in cases from around the world. In South Africa, a series of unfair dismissal disputes were filed with the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration by individual drivers against the ride-sharing platform Uber.Footnote ²³ These proceedings were later joined and consolidated by two unions, the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers and the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, which (albeit unsuccessfully) used the individual workers’ grievances to pursue claims based on the existence of an employment relationship between Uber and its drivers.Footnote ²⁴ An amicus curiae brief recently filed with the Californian Supreme Court by a coalition of labor organizations and workers’ groups in Castellanos v. State of California is a less formal example of this type of involvement.Footnote ²⁵ The case was itself jointly brought by a group of individual platform workers and a union, the Service Employees International Union. It concerned a constitutional challenge to a Californian statute that had the effect of classifying persons performing work for app-based transportation or delivery platforms as independent contractors rather than employees and thereby exempting them from workers’ compensation and other employment-based benefits.Footnote ²⁶ Although the workers’ challenge was ultimately unsuccessful, the significant union involvement and support it garnered at various levels is nevertheless noteworthy.

A third mode of union involvement in platform economy litigation is the organization and recruitment of claimants, particularly through the identification and pursuit of strategic test cases. Through this form of engagement, unions leverage their organizational capacity and community connections to identify workers willing to mount challenges against platform companies, coordinate their efforts, and strategically select cases that address systemic issues or establish legal precedents with broader implications.Footnote ²⁷ Such a role positions unions as architects of litigation strategy, allowing them to shape the landscape of platform worker regulation by determining which issues are litigated, in which forums, and at what time.

This mode of involvement has manifested in multiple jurisdictions. In the United Kingdom, the landmark case of Uber BV v. Aslam Footnote ²⁸ illustrates how worker-organizers can themselves act as strategic test claimants. Yaseen Aslam and James Farrar, founders of the App Drivers and Couriers Union, initiated a case that ultimately led the Supreme Court to find that Uber drivers are entitled to minimum employment protections, including the national minimum wage and paid holidays. While Aslam and Farrar led the litigation as claimants, their case also benefited from support provided by other unions at various stages of the proceedings.Footnote ²⁹ In the United States, the New York Taxi Workers’ Alliance has similarly leveraged strategic test claimants to mount multiple cases against platform companies, including proceedings concerning wage theft,Footnote ³⁰ as well as a challenge to improper log-off procedures.Footnote ³¹ Through the identification and coordination of test claimants, these organizations have advanced systemic challenges to platform companies’ practices while strategically determining which issues are litigated and in which forums.

Financial, practical, legal, or logistical support for workers who bring claims against platform companies represents a fourth critical mode of union involvement in platform litigation. This mode of engagement may encompass a wide range of activities, from directly funding legal proceedings and covering claimants’ costs to supplying legal expertise and representation or other expert advice, facilitating evidence gathering, and providing post-litigation support to help enforce favorable judgments or navigate settlements. Through this multifaceted support, unions can assist individual workers or groups of workers to sustain their claims through often lengthy and complex litigation processes, while simultaneously advancing broader labor rights objectives and worker solidarity.

This mode of involvement can be identified in cases from around the globe. The Transport Workers’ Union of Australia, for example, has offered legal representation to platform workers in a number of cases challenging platform companies’ classification of workers as independent contractors rather than employees.Footnote ³² The union’s in-house legal team has acted as solicitors for the claimants in these cases, taking primary responsibility for case management, court appearances, and all aspects of legal representation. The union also provided legal and other support to an Uber driver whose account was unfairly deactivated in a recent case before the Full Bench of the Australian Fair Work Commission. In that case, the complainants secured a landmark decision awarding the worker lost pay for the period during which he was unable to earn income through the platform.Footnote ³³ In Italy, the Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, a large national trade union center, has been instrumental in gathering evidence and information to support claims brought by platform workers against companies.Footnote ³⁴

The fifth, and final, key form of trade union involvement in platform worker litigation involves raising public awareness through media engagement and coalition building. This form of engagement leverages unions’ communication capacity and public profile to publicize workers’ grievances, highlight systemic issues, and build wider support for legal challenges to platform companies’ practices.Footnote ³⁵ Strategic media campaigns and collaborative advocacy efforts not only enhance the visibility of individual cases, but also contribute to shifting public and political attitudes toward platform work and workers’ rights, thereby placing pressure on both platform companies and policymakers to address systemic challenges faced by platform workers. Unions can also utilize decided cases in broader efforts to advocate for legislative and policy change.

Several notable examples elucidate this form of involvement. Representatives of the Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, for instance, have dedicated significant effort toward attaining media exposure for claims brought against platforms in Italy.Footnote ³⁶ In one case, a press release about a claim brought by a platform worker in relation to employment classification was picked up by local press. This led to the claimant and a union representative appearing on a television program to discuss the case and the precarious working conditions faced by platform workers more broadly, as well as to highlight the need for reform.Footnote ³⁷ In addition to securing media coverage for individual cases, unions have deployed coalition-building strategies to advance broader campaigns for platform worker protections. In Australia, for example, the Transport Workers’ Union has relied on media releases, public surveys, and coalition pressure to raise awareness around platform worker litigation.Footnote ³⁸