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Case Law Approaches and Regulatory Choices on Platform Work: The Italian Case
- Edited by MariaTeresa Carinci, Filip Dorssemont
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- Book:
- Platform Work in Europe
- Published by:
- Intersentia
- Published online:
- 22 February 2022
- Print publication:
- 27 September 2021, pp 57-82
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- Chapter
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Summary
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PHENOMENON: QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DATA
It is difficult in Italy to quantify the exact number of ‘platform workers’, meaning by that the people who perform work, generally of brief or very brief duration (a gig task or gig work) for a beneficiary ‘via’ digital infrastructures consisting of a website or an app on a mobile device (typically a smartphone).
The broad category of platform workers thus includes all those people who, after interacting with the beneficiary of the service through the platform, provide their work – either entirely online (‘gig workers’, who also include crowdworkers, the most typical example of which is the Turkers of Amazon Mechanical Turk) or in the physical world (‘workers via app’, such as riders on food delivery platforms) – with some ‘interference’ during the performance by the platform, which thus does not act as a mere intermediary since it is still somewhat involved in the performance of the task.
In Italy, at present, not only have there been only a limited number of surveys that attempt to determine the number of platform workers, but they are also far from being exhaustive. This is due to obvious reasons: firstly, it is well known that in most cases, the platforms classify platform workers as self-employed workers . As a result, because self-employed workers do not need to be registered with the public entities that regulate the labour market, their number cannot be determined through public registers, so mere estimates must be made. Secondly, there is no generally agreed-upon ‘work platform’ category, and thus the area to be investigated is also open to dispute and depends upon the choices underlying each survey project.
As a result, the surveys conducted to date – which, for the most part, rely on interviews of the workers – address the qualitative profile of this segment of the labour market in an attempt to outline the profile of workers who operate via platform. However, it is undisputed that the labour market segment in question is growing rapidly.
Platform Work in Europe: A Comparative Analysis
- Edited by MariaTeresa Carinci, Filip Dorssemont
-
- Book:
- Platform Work in Europe
- Published by:
- Intersentia
- Published online:
- 22 February 2022
- Print publication:
- 27 September 2021, pp 227-244
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- Chapter
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Summary
THE EXTENT OF ‘PLATFORM WORK’
Before examining the legal issues that platform work poses, it is necessary to first ask (as do all the national reports on the matter in this book) what the current extent of the phenomenon is and, thus, concretely, how many ‘platform workers’ there are.
All national reports highlight the lack of official statistics on the quantitative impact and growth of the introduction of ‘platform work’ on the active population concerned.
One of the main reasons for the lack of official data lies, in all probability, in the fact that – as is well known – most of the workers used by the platforms have a self-employment relationship with a platform and often even a totally informal relationship. This makes data collection extremely difficult. Only unofficial estimates can thus be used.
Unofficial data specific to each country shows that the estimates for each country are very divergent from one survey to another.
Data on the percentage of the active population involved in the gig economy is most common. It is complemented by data that distinguishes between workers who are mainly dependent upon the income derived from platform work and those who gain complementary income from platform work.
The overall tendency is that the proportion of gig workers is growing rapidly, although it usually never exceeds 5 per cent, with the exception of a Trade Union Confederation report that indicates a tantalising 9.6 per cent of the adult population in UK and also 10.4 per cent of the active population in Germany, according to a COLLEEM survey carried out in 2018.
All in all, the dominant feature is that of a male and less-than-middle-aged worker.
If the numbers are, therefore, growing rapidly, it is urgent to ask what these workers’ status is and what applicable individual and collective protections they have.
CONTRACTUAL RELATIONS AND APPLICABLE PROTECTIONS
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE RESEARCH: ‘WORK VIA PLATFORM’
A juridical debate must begin with definitions. We must, therefore, first ask ourselves what is meant by the term ‘platform work’.
Introduction
- Edited by MariaTeresa Carinci, Filip Dorssemont
-
- Book:
- Platform Work in Europe
- Published by:
- Intersentia
- Published online:
- 22 February 2022
- Print publication:
- 27 September 2021, pp 1-4
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
The idea for this book came about when we met in Milan in 2018 and, over a Milanese Veal Cutlet and a glass of red wine, we were discussing the phenomenon of platform work – then in its infancy, but which would soon explode throughout Europe – and the legal status and protections platform workers should be granted. At the time, it seemed that platform work was confined to marginal sectors of the labour market (the riders in the food delivery sector and the drivers of taxi-hailing services) and involved a small portion of the national labour markets. However, it quickly spread to many other forms of work (from baby-sitting and dog-sitting to doing small household chores, to cleaning services, shopping services and grocery delivery, to name just a few), gradually involving – partially due to the pandemic – an increasing number of workers.
After that first conversation, a seminar was held in Milan in October 2019 that was attended by the authors of the contributions collected in this book. That exchange of opinions, which highlighted many similarities between European legal systems, gave rise to the idea for this volume, which – thanks to the time that has passed – is much richer in content than the reports originally presented at the Milan seminar. Judges have intervened in all (or almost all) the legal systems in recent years, and in some legal systems even the legislators have intervened, to classify and, to some extent, protect platform workers, which will be clear from reading the national reports.
This book contains a number of national reports (Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom), other more transversal reports dealing with the issue of fundamental (collective) workers’ rights, as well as the applicable European legal framework. The conclusions focus on a comparison of the legal systems analysed in the national reports.
However, an analysis of ‘work via platform’ inevitably requires jurists to go further, to ask themselves a crucial question: is the notion of subordinate work, as it emerged and was consolidated during the 20th century, still able to encompass and provide workers in this new millennium with suitable protection ?