Collective rights of platform workers: The role of EU law

Abstract

Platform work is a new umbrella concept which covers a heterogeneous group of economic activities performed through digital platforms. Effective collective rights and bargaining would be essential for platform workers due to their vulnerable employment status. Yet collective organization of platform workers is troublesome, so trade unions face difficulties. The protection of the labour law directives is limited by their personal scope, which may be gradually expanded by the broad ECJ interpretation of the ‘worker’ concept. The effective right to collective bargaining would be particularly important, but it is restricted by EU antitrust rules with an exemption only for employees. In the last decade, the European Court has moved towards a wider personal scope of collective bargaining by interpreting the concept of ‘worker’. The recent FNV Kunsten decision used the notion of ‘false self-employed’ to go beyond the national concept of ‘employee’, but the wide interpretation of ‘worker’ shall be based on the need and necessity of employment protection deriving from economic dependency. As an alternative, the Gebhard formula may be invoked to grant the right to collective bargaining for platform workers.