Digital labour platforms have created unprecedented opportunities for workers, businesses and society by triggering innovation on a global scale. However, companies at its heart face severe criticism over inadequate employment protections (unfair work), free-riding on conventional businesses (unfair competition) and inadequate consumer protection. The Centre’s commentary series explores the following practice and policy-oriented questions:
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How can governments and international agencies put in place effective frameworks that can lead to rebalancing power asymmetries in platforms’ cross-border operations?
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How to design and support more inclusive participatory models?
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How to a recognise a formal role for labour and civil society in these frameworks?
READ MORE about the concept note and the call for contributions
The commentary series aims to foster dialogue across stakeholders. To date, it includes contributions from scholars, policy-makers, practitioners, and other stakeholders.
Published contributions:
- The Gig is Up: It's Time to Democratise Digital Platforms, by Amanda Claire Monroe (10 June 2022)
- EU Commission presents rules to strengthen collective rights for platform workers, by Thorben Albrecht and Aljoscha Voggenreiter (24 January 2022)
- Platform Capitalism, Platform Cooperativism and their Effects on Workers’ Satisfaction, by Raymond Saner, Lichia Yiu and Melanie Nguyen (23 November 2021)
- Using Employee Stock Ownership Plans to Democratize Labour-Based Platforms, by Tej Gonza and David Ellerman (12 November 2021)
- The implications of status precarisation for gig workers, citizens, the welfare state and democracy, by Johannes Kiess (2 September 2021)
- Have you seen the boss? Challenges old and new for workers in the gig economy, by Tom Montgomery (15 July 2021)
- Managing complexity in the platform economy: self-regulation and the cross-border social dialogue route, by Konstantinos Papadakis and Maria Mexi (16 June 2021)
- The platform economy - Time for more democracy at work, by Maria Mexi (26 May 2021)