Documents crowd work 628 results

"This report sets out to describe the potential occupational safety and health (OSH) risks that have been identified in relation to online platform work, to highlight the challenges for current regulatory approaches on OSH and to present examples of different approaches that are under way or being developed to meet these challenges. Given this, this report does not pretend to give a verdict on whether online platform work is ‘good' or ‘bad' and indeed it mentions, as well as the potential risks, the potential benefits, such as reducing the extent of undeclared work."

"All of a sudden, everybody's talking about the gig economy. From taxi drivers to pizza deliverers to the unemployed, we are all aware of the huge changes that it is driving in our lives as workers, consumers and citizens.

This is the first comprehensive overview of this highly topical subject. Drawing upon years of research, stories from gig workers, and a review of the key trends and debates, Jamie Woodcock and Mark Graham shed light on how the gig economy came to be, how it works and what it's like to work in it. They show that, although it has facilitated innovative new services and created jobs for millions, it is not without cost. It allows businesses and governments to generate value while passing significant risk and responsibility onto the workers that make it possible. This is not, however, an argument for turning back the clock. Instead, the authors outline four strategies that can produce a fairer platform economy that works for everyone. "

"Es un informe que analiza exhaustivamente cuál es la realidad del trabajo que se lleva a cabo en plataformas que reparten comidas, y otros productos, a domicilio (Glovo, Deliveroo, …) desde la captación de los repartidores como “falsos autónomos”, la organización del trabajo, las retribuciones, el sistema de gestión y las condiciones en las que se prestan los servicios. Las plataformas digitales ahorran al año de 168 millones € : 92 millones menos de salarios y 76 millones que no se ingresan a la Seguridad Social."

"The present material serves to raise awareness on the reality of platform work among national trade union organizations. The ETUI initiative responds to the identified training needs for a common approach to development of this topic at EU level, based on proposals expressed by the ETUC's member organizations. The ETUI's choice of the pedagogical design of this training material reflects the different trade union education needs/approaches existing in the affiliated organizations. The proposed programs have been structured in a general concept.

The suggested training formulas as well as the independent thematic units meet a wide range of needs:
• information on the concept of platform work, its evolution and impact on labour market;
• development of competences for trade union representatives involved in social dialogue in sectors with a high prevalence of platform workers;
• raised awareness on the importance of trade union action for decent working conditions for platform workers.

This training material provides trade union trainers with all the necessary pedagogical elements needed to deliver education activities at national level, compatible with various professional sectors as well as with different levels of time/resource availability."

"Although recent studies indicate that multiple jobholding is widespread in the digital platform economy, the interaction between people's engagement with digital platforms and the conventional labour market is rarely explored. This article brings new insights into this interaction, exploring the income of individuals combining paid work in the conventional labour market with income from distinct digital platforms. Based on two large-scale representative surveys of a random sample of 18,000 people in 2017 and 2019 in combination with administrative register data, we demonstrate how labour and capital platforms attract different income groups. We also find that online income in combination with non-platform income sources such as traditional jobs exacerbate the segmentation tendencies found in the conventional labour market. An increasing share of rich and poor seem to use different platforms, indicating a potential hierarchy of labour market segments in both the online and the conventional labour markets."

"This paper presents some of the key insights from the second wave of the ETUI Internet and Platform Work Survey (ETUI IPWS) conducted in 14 member states of the European Union (EU) in Spring 2021. The use of standard probability sampling allows us to estimate the proportion of internet and platform workers, and to identify their characteristics, in a way that is generalisable to the working age population. We found the prevalence of internet and platform work to be relatively similar in the analysed countries, suggesting a uniform evolution of this type of work across the EU. In particular, 17 per cent of the working age population did some internet work in the past year, 4.3 per cent did platform work and 1.1 per cent can be classified as ‘main platform workers'; that is, working 20 hours or more per week or earning more than 50 per cent of their income through platforms. Internet and platform workers differ from the offline workforce in several ways. They tend to be somewhat younger but are far from constituting a student workforce. They are better educated than those who have never done internet work and this is particularly the case for higher skill professional work. Internet work seems mainly to complement offline precarious work and serves as an extra source of income for those on less stable contracts."

"In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, this commentary describes and compares shifting employment and occupational health social protections of low-wage workers, including self-employed digital platform workers. Through a focus on eight advanced economy countries, this paper identifies how employment misclassification and definitions of employees were handled in law and policy. Debates about minimum wage and occupational health and safety standards as they relate to worker well-being are considered. Finally, we discuss promising changes introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic that protect the health of low-wage and self-employed workers. Overall, we describe an ongoing “haves” and a “have not” divide, with on the one extreme, traditional job arrangements with good work-and-health social protections and, on the other extreme, low-wage and self-employed digital platform workers who are mostly left out of schemes. However, during the pandemic small and often temporary gains occurred and are discussed."

"At the beginning of 2022, hopes were high that the Covid-19 pandemic was on the ebb and that the European Union (EU) would be able to focus again on the main challenge of this century: how to proactively tackle the green and digital transition in a socially fair and inclusive way. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine dashed these hopes. Realpolitik was back on the agenda, with the EU having to figure out how to deal with its Eastern neighbour. Overnight, EU dependence on Russian fossil fuels became a major headache. With energy and food prices soaring, double-digit inflation reared its ugly head throughout the world, resulting in a cost-of-living crisis which has pushed millions of people into poverty as well as stoking popular discontent and mobilising trade unions, with the prospect of further civil unrest, protests and strikes. Obviously, all this had a major influence on EU policymaking: while the Russian military aggression in early 2022 prompted the EU to respond with unprecedented steps forward in European integration, it also highlighted the weaknesses in the EU governance system. A health crisis, an economic and financial crisis and a climate crisis are unfolding in parallel, while full-scale war is back in Europe. The question is now whether ‘normal times' will ever return or whether we will find ourselves living in a state of ‘permacrisis'.

Despite this stormy background, the EU social ship reached deeper waters. With the wind of the European Pillar of Social Rights in its sails, important progress has been made inter alia on minimum wages, occupational health and safety, the working conditions of people working through platforms, and gender equality. Furthermore, many new social initiatives have seen the light of day under the umbrella of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, promoting, at least to some extent, social investment, performance-based financing and (be it in a patchy way) a ‘just' green transition. Last but not least, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have furthered European integration through highlighting the need to stand together in the face of a common foe. A European health space is now in the making, and new forms of economic governance – including the scope for an EU Social Imbalances Procedure – are being discussed, while the debate about a minimum income initiative is ongoing. Finally, this year's Bilan social raises the question whether the EUs ‘open strategic autonomy' paradigm could provide a window of opportunity to sustain the EU's social ambitions in the longer run."

"Online labour platforms are redefining the world of work, but little is known even now about the drivers of worker engagement in this type of activity. Earlier studies focused on individual preferences and job characteristics such as flexibility or low entry barriers, but the relative role of such pull factors is limited given widespread worker discontent and generally precarious and unstable conditions, in many respects similar to the low-wage and informal sector. This working paper expands current frameworks by considering the role of the local economic and employment context in explaining the prevalence of internet and platform work.

Our analysis uses the ETUI Internet and Platform Work Survey carried out in Spring and Autumn 2021 with representative cross-national data covering 14 European countries. The results show a higher likelihood of engaging in online work in regions with worse offline opportunities – that is, fewer jobs and of lower quality overall. As internet work is often a secondary source of income, this is likely to reflect a greater juggling of offline and online jobs, driven by increasing economic and job insecurity."

"This paper presents the results of a mapping of social dialogue and collective bargaining experiences in the European platform economy. Building on a descriptive analysis of the initiatives, the report provides insights into collective bargaining strategies and factors that have led platforms to negotiate. It focuses on empirical and legal ‘obstacles' encountered – both before and after negotiations – as well as on emerging good practices. With traditional unions playing the lead role, most initiatives are collective agreements concluded at company level. It also emerges that smaller platforms are more willing to engage in social dialogue, while larger players still have an attitude of avoidance as regards collective bargaining and labour law protections.

Although collective agreements have marked an improvement in working conditions, many platform workers still do not have sufficient protection, and issues related to the peculiarities of the platform economy need to be better addressed. Coordinated and collaborative action by various actors (informal and traditional trade unions, institutions, consumers) is then suggested as a way to improve working conditions and simultaneously support companies complying with the law and collective agreements – hence effectively challenging the narrative of the economic unsustainability of labour protections in the platform economy."