Platforms Directive and digital labour rights

Abstract

The aim of the article is to analyze the main problems emerging by the Proposal of the Directive concerning platform workers’ minimum rights and their employment status in the digital economy. In identifying the main challenges for the Italian legal system, the A. focuses on three questions. The first question, which appears to be the most relevant, concerns the subjective field of application of the Directive: the European proposal is divided into two levels of protection, distinguishing those who have a contract or employment relationship recognized by national Law and persons performing platform work who do not have an employment relationship. Conversely, the Italian legal system, which historically is more articulated, contemplates a large intermediate area of ​​semi-subordinate, hetero-organized and weak autonomous work, to which specific protections are gradually applied. The second question concerns the mechanism of the legal presumption of subordination applicable to platform work (see Article 4). This is a simplified procedure for verifying the employment status of digital workers, which, however, is extraneous to the domestic legal system and above all to the model of ascertaining the status of subordination adopted by jurisprudence, thus requiring a regulatory and interpretative connection that is not simple. The last question raised by the proposal concerns the definition of European workers' rights towards the digital platform. The Directive is focused on the rights connected to algorithmic management and the transparency of automated decision-making systems (see Chapter III), while it even seems to include or restrict the operational scope of some substantial safeguards recognized in the domestic legal system.

Keywords

• digital labour platform
• employment status
• legal presumption
• algorithmic management