The ‘gig economy’: employee,self-employed or the need for a special employment regulation?

Abstract

German

French

The digital era has changed employment relationships dramatically, causing a considerable degree of legal uncertainty as to which rules apply in cyberspace. Technology is transforming business organisation in a way that makes employees – as subordinate workers – less necessary. New types of companies, based on the ‘on-demand economy’ or so-called ‘sharing economy’ and dedicated to connecting customers directly with individual service providers, are emerging. These companies conduct their entire core business through workers that they classify as self-employed. In this context, employment law is facing its greatest challenge, as it has to deal with a very different reality to the one existing when it was created. This article analyses the literature available about the classification of this new type of worker as an employee or as self-employed, concluding that there is a need for a new special labour regulation. It also describes and justifies the bases for this new special labour regulation.

Keywords

Outsourcing ‘sharing’ economy employment contract self-employment Uber economy gig economy economic dependency legal concept of employee

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aloisi

(2016) Commoditized Workers. Case Study Research on Labour Law Issues Arising from a Set of ‘On-Demand/Gig Economy’ Platforms. Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal 37(3): 663–690.

Asher-Schapiro

(2014) Against Sharing. Jacobinmag, 19 September, 1. Available at: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/09/against-sharing/ (accessed 13 March 2017).

Baylos Grau

(2000) La ‘huida’ del derecho del trabajo. Tendencias y límites de la deslaborización. In: Alarcón Caracuel

Mirón Hernández

(eds) El trabajo ante el cambio de siglo: un tratamiento multidisciplinar (aspectos laborales, fiscales, penales y procesales). Madrid: Marcial Pons, pp. 35–54.

Beyer

(2014) Expect Us: online Communities and Political Mobilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Brescia

(2016) Regulating the sharing economy: New and old insights into an oversight regime for the peer-to-peer economy. Nebraska Law Review 95: 88–144.

Casas

Baamonde

. (1999) Trabajo y empleo. Transformaciones del trabajo y futuro del Derecho del Trabajo Europeo. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch.

Cherry

(2009) Working for (virtually) minimum wage: applying the fair labors standards act in cyberspace. Alabama Law Review 60(5): 1077–1110.

Cherry

(2016) Beyond misclassification: the digital transformation of work. Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal 37(3): 544–577.

Cruz Villalón

(1999) El proceso evolutivo de delimitación del trabajo subordinado. In: VVAA Trabajo subordinado y trabajo autónomo en la delimitación de fronteras de derecho del trabajo: estudios en homenaje al profesor José Cabrera Bazán. Madrid: Tecnos, pp. 169–192.

10.

Davidov

(2002) The three axes of employment relationships: A characterization of workers in need of protection. The University of Toronto Law Journal 52: 357–418.

11.

Davidov

(2005) Who is a worker? Industrial Law Journal 34(1): 57–71.

12.

Davidov

(2016) A Purposive Approach to Labour Law. Oxford: Oxford Monographs on Labour Law.

13.

Davis

(2015) A New Class of Worker Could Fix The On-Demand Economy. The Crunch, 17 July. Available at: https://techcrunch.com/2015/07/17/a-new-class-of-worker-could-fix-the-on-demand-economy/ (accessed 13 March 2017).

14.

De La Villa Gil

García Ninet

(1990) Contrato de trabajo a domicilio. In: Borrajo DaCruz

(dic.) El Estatuto de los Trabajadores Tomo III. Madrid: Edersa: pp. 8–13.

15.

De Stefano

(2016) The Rise of the “Just-in-Time” Workforce: On-Demand Work, Crowd Work and Labour Protection in the “Gig-Economy”. ILO Conditions of Work and Employment Series no. 71, Geneva: International Labour Office.

16.

European Commission (2016) A European agenda for the collaborative economy. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, COM(2016) 356 final, 2 June 2016, Brussels.

17.

Felstiner

(2011) Working the crowd: employment and labor law in the crowdsourcing industry. Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law 32(1): 143–202.

18.

Fisher

(2015) Uber says drivers oppose lawsuit that would make them employees. Forbes. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2015/07/09/uber-says-its-drivers-want-no-part-of-lawsuit-to-make-them-employees/#1e45d4b1387d (accessed 16 February 2017).

19.

Gabel

Mansfield

(2003) The information and its Impact on the employment relationship: an analysis of the cyberspace workplace. American Business Law Journal 40(2): 301–353.

20.

González Ortega

(1987) La difícil coyuntura del Derecho del Trabajo. Relaciones Laborales 2: 260–282.

21.

Guerrero Vizuete

(2010) La (¿acertada?) regulación del trabajador autónomo económicamente dependiente: Análisis del artículo 11 del Estatuto del Trabajo Autónomo. Aranzadi Social 20: 149–170.

22.

Howe

(2006) The rise of Crowdsourcing. Wired, 1 June. Available at: https://www.wired.com/2006/06/crowds/ (accessed 13 March 2017).

23.

Huet

(2014) Uber Deactivated A Driver For Tweeting A Negative Story About Uber. Forbes. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2014/10/16/uber-driver-deactivated-over-tweet/#545e7b8a36c8 (accessed 16 February 2017).

24.

Irani

Six

(2013) Turkopticon: interrupting worker invisibility in Amazon Mechanical Turk. Changing Perspectives. Paris, 1–10. Available at: https://hci.cs.uwaterloo.ca/faculty/elaw/cs889/reading/turkopticon.pdf (accessed 13 March 2017).

25.

Luján Alcaraz

(1991) La contratación privada de servicios y el contrato de trabajo: contribución al estudio del ámbito de aplicación del Derecho del Trabajo. Murcia: Universidad de Murcia.

26.

Luján Alcaraz

(2001) Reflexiones sobre el papel del Derecho del Trabajo en la actual revitalización del trabajo autónomo. Aranzadi Social 15: 227–234.

27.

Martín Valverde

(1990) El discreto retorno del arrendamiento de servicios. In: VVAA Cuestiones actuales de Derecho del Trabajo. Estudios ofrecidos por los catedráticos de Derecho del Trabajo en homenaje al Profesor Manuel Alonso Olea. Madrid: Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad Social, pp. 236–260.

28.

Martínez Barroso

(2005) Trabajo autónomo y trabajo subordinado. Delimitación, Análisis y Propuestas de Reforma. Estudios Financieros 273: 71–144.

29.

Marvit

(2014) How Crowdworkers became the ghosts in the digital machine. The Nation, 5 February 2014. Available at: https://www.thenation.com/article/how-crowdworkers-became-ghosts-digital-machine/ (accessed 13 March 2017).

30.

Montoya Melgar

(1998) Sobre el trabajo dependiente como categoría delimitadora del Derecho del Trabajo. Civitas. Revista española de derecho del trabajo 91: 709–724.

31.

Pérez de los Cobos

(1993) El trabajo subordinado como tipo contractual. Documentación Laboral 39: 29–48.

32.

Rodríguez-Piñero

(1966) La dependencia y la extensión del ámbito del Derecho del Trabajo. Revista de Política Social 71: 40–73.

33.

Rodríguez-Piñero

(1992) La huida del Derecho del Trabajo. Relaciones Laborales 12: 5–25.

34.

Rodríguez Sañudo

(1999) La integración del teletrabajo en el ámbito de la relación laboral. In: Rodríguez Sañudo

VVAA Trabajo subordinado y trabajo autónomo en la delimitación de fronteras del derecho del trabajo: estudios en homenaje al profesor José Cabrera Bazán. Madrid: Tecnos, pp. 103–122.

35.

Rogers

(2015) Employment as a Legal Concept. Legal Studies Research Papers Series. Philadelphia: Temple University.

36.

Sachs

(2015a) Uber and lyft: customer reviews and the right-to-control. On labor.

37.

Sachs

(2015b) A new category of worker for the on-demand economy? On labor.

38.

Sala Franco

López Mora

(1990) Contrato de trabajo. Comentarios a las leyes laborales. El Estatuto de los Trabajadores. Volume I.

39.

Salehi

. (2015) We Are Dynamo: Overcoming Stalling and Friction in Collective Action for Crowd Workers. CHI’15. Available at: http://hci.stanford.edu/publications/2015/dynamo/DynamoCHI2015.pdf (accessed 13 March 2017).

40.

Selma Penalva

(2010) Propuestas y reconsideraciones sobre el teletrabajo. Anales de Derecho 28: 20–45.

41.

Sprage

(2015) Worker (Mis)Classification in the Sharing Economy: Square Pegs Trying to fit in Round Holes. A.B.A. Journal of Labor & Employment Law 31, Wyoming: University of Wyoming, pp. 53–76.

42.

Uber (2016) Uber Terms and Conditions. No. 10 November 2016. Available at: www.uber.com/legal/usa/terms (accessed 16 February 2017).

43.

Weber

Turcios

(2015) Uber hits a speed bump in California: labor commissioner rules driver is an employee. Employee Benefit Plan Review, September 70(3): 3–13.