Abstract
This article investigates whether the existing frameworks of industrial relations and social dialogue can also be applied to work in the platform economy. It further questions what role the traditional Social Partners can play in dealing with the challenges of this new form of work. The article maps new forms of organisation, of both workers and platforms, and explores how these interact with the traditional actors and structures. While organising platform workers is difficult, numerous successful efforts to do so exist, including by grassroots organisations, worker cooperatives and formal unions. All of these, to different degrees, perform similar functions to those of traditional Social Partners.
Highlights
Digitalisation is an important driver of economic change and alternative work arrangements, of which work in the platform economy is one particular form that has been subject to much debate
This article focuses on three angles: first, we examine the role of industrial relations and social dialogue in the platform economy; second, we investigate what levels of organisation and representation exist, both informally and formally; and third, we look at the activities that representation entails
This article has presented an overview of existing practices in the platform economy, touching upon the employment and working conditions of these platforms and how the relevant actors, including the workers and owners of platforms, have been engaging or organising, if at all, to address the conditions they face
Summary
Digitalisation is an important driver of economic change and alternative work arrangements, of which work in the platform economy is one particular form that has been subject to much debate. Labour & globalisation Volume 12, Number 2, Winter 2018 years, platforms have rapidly gained ground in the European Union (EU), attracting an ever increasing number of users and workers. Platform work is seen as entailing more flexibility, greater access to the labour market, additional income and other benefits. Others regard the platform economy as disenfranchising vulnerable workers and legitimising a precarious form of work. The opportunities and risks of platform work, and what to do about it, have become much-discussed topics in both academic and policymaker circles – in Europe, in the context of the Digital Single Market and the European Agenda on the Collaborative Economy (European Commission, 2016)
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