Documents De Stefano, Valerio 40 results

"The survey was commissioned by the ETUC and carried out by Professors Countouris and De Stefano to explore options for new legal conceptual frameworks implied by the rise of ‘new forms of employment', and in particular from the growth of forms of work that fall outside traditional labour and social security protections.

The research has generated original data in the form of national reports from Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Germany and the UK. We therefore would like to thank those unions and national legal experts who provided feedback and material to the authors.

Starting with the question “who is a worker?”, the report identifies similarities and differences between the countries covered by the survey. In a following part, after a comparative perspective on the various legal status of self-employed workers, the researchers test national laws against various labour scenarios. The findings show that the self-employed category is increasingly populated by a heterogeneous group of workers with a weak position in the labour market which prevents them from having a strong organisational autonomy or independence in the marketplace.

The report also tackles the collective labour rights of self-employed workers as well as legal obstacles to collective bargaining due to restrictive interpretation of antitrust law.

In a final part it examines the various proposals and debates on this issue at national and EU level and as a conclusion it puts forward a proposal for a new “personal work relation” to be potentially supported by unions. This proposal defines the personal scope of application of labour law (broadly understood as including individual and collective labour law - therefore encompassing the right to organise and bargain collectively - but also employment equality law) as applicable to any person that is engaged by another to provide labour, unless that person is genuinely operating a business on her or his own account.

This extensive report will provide you with a useful insight and a comparative perspective on the situation of self-employed workers across Europe. This is even more important in view of the upcoming European elections, where the protection of all workers regardless of their status should be put at the centre of policy making."

"Casual work is rarely associated with industrialised economies. Nonetheless, several work arrangements have been introduced or are proliferating in EU countries in recent years that present with the features of the statutory definitions of casual work in other countries and may be accompanied by severe decent work deficits. This article proposes a renewed concept of casual work based on a combination of criteria found in social sciences and in the legislation of non-EU countries, in particular, developing ones. It provides a summary of the international and European legal sources mentioning casual work, almost invariably to allow exclusion from national implementation instruments; and an extensive overview of national legal definition and regulation of casual work in developed and developing countries. Despite this overview revealing that casual workers are totally or partially excluded from labour protection in many instances, several national regulations address some particular features of casual work, for instance by providing specific criteria of calculation of continuity of employment or compensation in case of cancellation of work. This article then calls for action at the EU and national levels to address the specific protection needs of causal workers and to revise provisions allowing their exclusions from labour regulation."

"The so-called “gig-economy” has been growing exponentially in numbers and importance in recent years but its impact on labour rights has been largely overlooked. Forms of work in the “gig-economy” include “crowdwork”, and “work-on-demand via apps”, under which the demand and supply of working activities is matched online or via mobile apps. These forms of work can provide a good match of job opportunities and allow flexible working schedules. However, they can also pave the way to a severe commodification of work. This paper discusses the implications of this commodification and advocates the full recognition of activities in the gig-economy as “work”."

"After advocating flexibilisation of non-standard work contracts for many years, some European and international institutions and several policy makers now indicate the standard employment relationship and its regulation as a cause of segmentation between the labour market of ‘protected' insiders, employed under permanent contracts with effective protection against unfair dismissal, and the market of the ‘non-protected' outsiders, working with non-standard contracts. Reforms of employment legislation are therefore being promoted and approved in different countries, supposedly aiming to balance the legal protection afforded to standard and non-standard workers. This article firstly argues that this approach is flawed as it oversimplifies reasons for segmentation and concentrates on an ‘insider–outsider' discourse that cannot easily be transplanted into continental Europe. After reviewing current legislative changes in Italy, Spain and Portugal, I argue that lawmakers have focused on ‘deregulation' rather than ‘balancing protection' when approving recent reforms. I question the mainstream approach to segmentation and some of its derivative proposals, such as calls to introduce a ‘single permanent contract', on the grounds that they neglect the essential role of job protection in underpinning the effectiveness of fundamental and constitutional rights at the workplace."

"The debate on how to adjust existing regulation to keep pace with the rise and spread of the non-standard workforce worldwide has mainly concentrated on individual employment law. This article means to draw attention to some collective labour regulation issues that have a significant impact on the labour protection of non-standard workers. Without subscribing to the idea that the standard employment relationship is an outmoded model of regulation, this article argues that some existing restrictions on collective rights are failing to keep pace with transformations of labour markets that occurred in recent decades and in particular with the growth in the number of non-standard workers. Consequently, these workers are legally or practically denied access to the meaningful exercise of collective rights. Some of these restrictions, such as antitrust bans on collective bargaining, regulations imposing strike ballots, limitations of secondary action and the distinction between political and economic strikes, are called into question since they disproportionately affect non-standard workers and are at odds with the recognition of collective rights, and in particular the right to strike, as human rights. "

"Game Changers in Labour Law is pursued in the spirit and with the methods of the late Emeritus Professor Roger Blanpain (1932–2016), a great reformer who continuously searched for key challenges in the world of work and looked as far as possible into the future, engaging in critical reflection and rethinking the design of labour law. While seeking to identify the main game changers, the authors explore new pathways and answers which may help to understand and shape the future of work. This book provides full and integrated insight into labour law and industrial relations. The scholars were brought together during an international conference organized by the Institute for Labour Law at the University of Leuven, Belgium in November 2017. The renowned international labour law scholars contributing to this incomparable volume use the term ‘game changers' to refer to evolutions, concepts, ideas and challenges that are having, or have had, major impacts on how we must understand and approach labour law in today's global economy."

"This paper aims at filling some gaps in the mainstream debate on automation, the introduction of new technologies at the workplace and the future of work. This debate has concentrated, so far, on how many jobs will be lost as a consequence of technological innovation. This paper examines instead issues related to the quality of jobs in future labour markets. It addresses the detrimental effects on workers of awarding legal capacity and rights and obligation to robots. It examines the implications of practices such as People Analytics and the use of big data and artificial intelligence to manage the workforce. It stresses on an oft-neglected feature of the contract of employment, namely the fact that it vests the employer with authority and managerial prerogatives over workers. It points out that a vital function of labour law is to limit these authority and prerogatives to protect the human dignity of workers. In light of this, it argues that even if a Universal Basic Income were introduced, the existence of managerial prerogatives would still warrant the existence of labour regulation since this regulation is about much more than protecting workers' income. It then highlights the benefits of human-rights based approaches to labour regulation to protect workers' privacy against invasive electronic monitoring. It concludes by highlighting the crucial role of collective regulation and social partners in governing automation and the impact of technology at the workplace. It stresses that collective dismissal regulation and the involvement of workers' representatives in managing and preventing job losses is crucial and that collective actors should actively participate in the governance of technology-enhanced management systems, to ensure a vital “human-in-command” approach."

"This Foresight Brief examines whether digital labour platforms should be treated as private employment agencies. Platforms like LinkedIn may rightfully be perceived by the general public to be mere social networks, but underneath their sleek design, they also act as an employment service. This brief specifically focused on one of the central principles of international labour standards on employment services, namely that jobseekers must not be charged any fees or costs for job-finding services, unless those fees or costs have been approved by a competent authority. "

"This report maps a kaleidoscopic array of platform-mediated working arrangements, by clustering the findings into three main subsets (passenger transport services, professional crowdsourcing, on-demand work at the client's premises). Many initiatives taken by the European institutions and aimed at promoting decent work in the collaborative economy are analysed including (i) the European Commission's Communication 356/2016, (ii) the principles enshrined in the European Pillar of Social Rights, and (iii) the ruling by the European Court of Justice on the nature of the service provided by Uber. After exploring the existing legal framework in several European countries, this study goes into the issue of the legal status of platform–based or –mediated workers by analysing what is at stake in pending litigations on the proper classification. In the end, this report is meant to contrast the sense that new realities of work have outgrown legal concepts. The application of existing regulation must be reinforced, in order to avoid the risk that platform workers are considered by default as falling in a normative vacuum. In the end, creating a level playing field between the traditional and the digitally-enabled companies is the only way to reap full benefits of the on-going digital transformation."