Reconciling risk and workers’ rights: The EU's risk-based approach to algorithmic management and its implications for labour law *

Abstract

This article examines the expansion of the EU's risk-based approach to the governance of algorithmic management and its implications for labour law. Risk-based regulation – as embodied in the GDPR, the AI Act, and the Platform Work Directive – relies on anticipatory and context-sensitive mechanisms, most notably impact assessments, to identify and manage risks before harm occurs. These techniques remain largely unfamiliar to labour law, which has traditionally relied on a rights-based approach based on prescriptive norms generally aimed at the outright prevention of harm. As a result, scholars have expressed concern that importing a logic of risk tolerance into the domain of workers’ rights may erode established protections and trigger deregulatory drift. After analysing the core features of the EU's risk-based approach and its interaction with labour law, the article argues that these tensions can be generally reconciled through interpretation. When impact assessments concern workers’ rights, they should be read as requiring risk elimination rather than mere mitigation, thereby aligning risk-based regulation with the protective core of labour law. Although enforcement challenges remain and are primarily a matter for policy intervention, the article contends that risk-based regulation – if properly framed and interpreted – does not necessarily undermine labour law's foundational logic, but can enhance its anticipatory and preventive capacity in the governance of algorithmic management.