Abstract
Abstract: Recent years have seen a radical shift in the practice and profile of the labour economy in the United Kingdom consisting in the considerable growth of the so-called ‘Sharing Economy’ or ‘Gig Economy’, better identified as the ‘On-demand Economy’. From that starting point, it is argued that a corresponding change seems to have occurred in the set of concepts which the labour/ employment law of the United Kingdom uses to analyse and to characterize the work relations and work contracts which are created, made, and operated within this rapidly growing sector of the labour market. Two recent high-profile Employment Tribunal decisions in the Uber and Citysprint cases, and a decision of the Court of Appeal in this same area in the Pimlico Plumbers case have served to confirm the legislative creation of a third intermediate category of ‘workers’ who benefit from a set of employment rights which is more limited than that enjoyed by employees but which is nevertheless very important. This crystallization of labour law’s newly tripartite taxonomy of work relations has occurred very largely in the context of the on-demand economy, and is beneficial to those located in that sector. This is, however, a rather fragile conceptual structure.Keywords: employees, workers, ‘sharing economy’, ‘on-demand economy’, recent cases in UK.
Highlights
Recent years have seen a radical shift in the practice and profile of the labour economy in the United Kingdom consisting in the considerable growth of the so-called ‘Sharing Economy’ or ‘Gig Economy’, better identified as the ‘On-demand Economy’
Two recent high-profile Employment Tribunal decisions in the Uber and Citysprint cases, and a decision of the Court of Appeal in this same area in the Pimlico Plumbers case have served to confirm the legislative creation of a third intermediate category of ‘workers’ who benefit from a set of employment rights which is more limited than that enjoyed by employees but which is very important
This paper takes as its starting point a radical shift in the practice and profile of the labour economy in the United Kingdom consisting in the considerable growth of the so-called ‘Sharing Economy’ or ‘Gig Economy’, better identified as the ‘On-demand Economy’
Summary
The phenomenon under scrutiny in this contribution is often traced back to the concept of ‘crowdsourcing’, as described in technology magazine Wired just over ten years ago.[1]. Litigation arising from the use of Zero-Hours Contracts to allow employers numerical flexibility and to attempt to avoid the application of statutory protection can be traced back nearly forty years.[30] In Mailway,[31] for example, the claimant postal packer ‘could and would only attend for work in accordance with the need expressed by the employers.’[32] A study by Katherine Cave in the 1990s showed the already widespread use of ‘something that could be classified as zero hours contracts’;33 with a strong growth trend as an area where there has been abuse’[34] continuing in the subsequent decade.[35] The technology underpinning work in the on-demand economy is new: the underlying reality of precarious work is not This point can be further illustrated by reference to a recent UK Employment Tribunal ruling that Uber drivers were workers employed by the company and entitled to minimum wage and other basic labour rights. This case-law and the partial resolution which they produced are presented and analysed of the paper
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