The legal and jurisprudential evolution of the notion of employee

Abstract

The essay analyses the concept of employed worker in the light of the expansive trend of labour law. Two perspectives are investigated. The first concerns the revisiting of the concept of employed worker through the interpretation of jurisprudence. Comparative analysis demonstrates a tendency, not univocal but prevalent, of jurisprudence to broaden the notion of subordinate work, which manifests itself through purposive interpretation techniques. The other perspective is that of the creation of intermediate categories, such as that of ‘worker’ in the UK or that of ‘parasubordinato’ work in Italy, or even the notion of ‘economically dependent self-employment’ (Spain, Germany), to which selectively apply some protections of subordinate work. The current challenge of labour law is therefore to be able to respond to changes in the production reality, exemplified by work through a digital platform, to provide adequate protection for new forms of work and new ways in which subordination is expressed.