Documents Rainone, Silvia 25 results

"When the European Commission published its proposals for a Directive ‘on improving working conditions in platform work' in December 2021, it set out both to protect the social rights of platform workers and ‘to support the conditions for the sustainable growth of digital labour platforms' across the Union. More specifically, it sought to ensure that people working through platforms have – or can obtain – the correct employment status in light of their actual relationship with the digital labour platform and gain access to the applicable labour and social protection rights; to ensure fairness, transparency and accountability in algorithmic management in the platform work context; and to enhance transparency, traceability and awareness of developments in platform work and improve enforcement of the applicable rules for all people working through platforms, including those operating across borders..."

This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

"This article examines the collective labour rights dimension of the EU Platform Work Directive (PWD), drawing on a normative framework centred on personal scope, material scope, and enforcement. The analysis shows that while the Directive represents a milestone in regulating employment status and algorithmic management, its ability to rebalance bargaining power remains uncertain. The PWD makes progress by extending key rights related to automated monitoring and decision-making systems to all ‘persons performing platform work,' including the self-employed. However, consultation rights remain limited to employees, leaving self-employed workers with more limited prerogatives. The Directive also falls short in addressing subcontracting practices that separate platforms' economic power from legal accountability, thereby weakening meaningful collective engagement. In addition, although pioneering rights concerning algorithmic management and data use are introduced, their implications for core working conditions such as wages and working time are largely overlooked. By contrast, the enforcement dimension emerges as comparatively stronger, granting workers' representatives a more active role. The article concludes by outlining policy options - including stricter rules on subcontracting, a directive on algorithmic management at work, and greater attention to labour market power - to reinforce collective labour rights in a digitalised economy."

This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

"This introductory chapter sets the scene for this multidisciplinary volume by referring to a number of under-researched areas in the study of app-based food delivery in the platform economy. It provides overviews of the individual chapters – most of a comparative nature – and summarises the overall arguments they make. It also anchors the analytical effort in recent regulatory developments that have led to the adoption by the European Union of the Platform Work Directive."

"This chapter provides an empirical analysis of national case law in the platform economy, and explores the extent to which creative judicial reasoning is paving the way for more inclusive normative paradigms governing the scope of labour law. Looking at cases concerning employment relationship, the chapter suggests that national courts often resort to legal arguments that go beyond the classical notion of subordination, signalling a broader understanding of the vulnerability in platform work. Further, the chapter identifies a growing number of cases dealing with the allocation of employer responsibilities in multi-party business structures – where the platform outsources the hiring of workers to intermediaries. While these rulings show a stronger attachment to classical, formalistic legal structures where the intermediary is recognised as the employer, in a number of cases, judges have found evidence of illegal labour brokering. These judgments are important precedents that lift the corporate veil erected by platforms to evade employer obligations."

"This article argues that the transformative dynamics brought along by the digital economy call for a normative rethinking of the allocation of employers' obligations across the value chain, so as to better target the actual holders of labour market power. There is a growing mismatch between the role of the employer as typified in labour law frameworks — as the owner of productive assets and able to conduct its business autonomously — and the limited bargaining autonomy of the firms that gravitate in the ecosystems of digital tech corporations. This phenomenon can be attributed to two parallel trends. The first is the aggravation of contractual and corporate fragmentation, driven by subcontracting and outsourcing practices; while the second is the changing nature of power dynamics among business players, resulting in new forms of market concentration. If left unaddressed, both evolutions would eventually lead to a widespread deterioration of working conditions. The article therefore seeks insights into how the scope of the obligations of the employer might be broadened beyond the contractual employment relationship. To this end, it explores recent normative openings in European Union labour law such as the Platform Work Directive and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. It also draws on competition law developments in the digital economy field, which might provide interesting insights for promoting fairer labour markets in situations of excessive power concentration."

This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

"The present article inquires on the approach to labour rights that has characterized the development of the EU. First, it analyses the way in which the EU policy making refers to social and labour standards and to their function within the process of EU integration. Subsequently, the article turns to the CJEU interpretation of workers' rights, by taking the Directive on transfers of undertaking as case study. The concluding findings are that there is a certain degree of convergence between the CJEU's reasoning and the policy documents. In both cases, it is possible to identify a gradual change in the approach to labour rights, which are more and more considered from a market-oriented perspective. The article concludes observing that this has led to the progressive weakening of the protective function of the analysed labour norms. "

"In 2020, country-specific recommendations (CSRs) have shifted more markedly in favour of strengthening workers' digital skills and providing adequate social protection. This change of focus has conferred a rather social outlook to the 2020 European Semester cycle. For the first time since the launch of the European Semester process, the social recommendations appear to have been 'emancipated' from the growth rhetoric. The emphasis on the social dimension in the CSRs is, according to Silvia Rainone, likely to be an effect of the EU Commission's reaction to the socioeconomic crisis triggered by Covid-19.

The specific traits of the 2020 CSRs are certainly to be welcomed. However, important aspects such as, inter alia, wages, gender equality, pension systems, the transition from education to the labour market, occupational safety and health, and child poverty seem to have fallen off the radar. The effectiveness of such recommendations will need to be carefully assessed over the coming months."

"On 24 October 2019, the General Court ruled upon a request of the trade union EPSU to annul a refusal of the European Commission to submit a proposal of a Directive to implement an agreement about information and consultation of civil servants and employees working for central governmental administrations, following a joint request by the signatory parties to do so (General Court , 24 October 2019, T-310/18, European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU), Jan Goudriaan vs Commission européenne). According to the General Court, the Commission is not required to give effect to the signatory parties' request and «it is for that institution to determine whether it is appropriate for it to submit a proposal to that effect to the Council» (§ 103).

Since the case has been brought before the CJEU, it is up to the academic Community of specialists of European (labour) law to act as genuine albeit symbolic amicus curiae pendente lite. The papers presented on the occasion of the Amicus Curiae Workshop on the EPSU Case (European Social Dialogue) - A Meta-dialogue with the Court of Justice – held in Brussels on September the 16th 2020 - are now assembled in this collective volume."