Subordination: the sunset of a timeless notion?

Abstract

The author reflects on the evolution of the notion of “subordination”, following its most significant stages: from the "Barassian" model, to the crisis of the 1980s, up to the events of our times. Today, in the context of the digital economy, subordination seems less suitable to express a condition of social-economic subjection. For the future, it is possible to imagine the passage to a model of protection based on a floor of rights for the person who "works in favour of others" and on further protections that can be modulated according to the protection needs, but irrespective of modalities of the work performance. This evokes a return to the late nineteenth-century model of "social legislation", from which everything originated.

Keywords

• employment
• subordination
• self-employment
• gig economy