In early April 2021, a draft EU Regulation on a European Approach to Artificial Intelligence was leaked to the press. The draft had been already attentively commented, among others, by Dr Michael Veale (UCL Faculty of Laws). The draft Regulation, however, raised many specific concerns about the use of AI at work to be addressed…

  Valerio De Stefano,* Ilda Durry,* Harry Stylogiannis,* Mathias Wouters* The debates on platform work have come a long way since the early publications in the first part of the last decade. For a long time, many commentators agreed with the words of Judge Vince Chhabria in the Californian case about the ride-hailing platform Lyft:…

Jeremias Adams-Prassl, Antonio Aloisi, Nicola Countouris, Valerio De Stefano   In late April 2020, the Court of Justice of the EU handed down an order in response to a request for a preliminary ruling on working time protection from a UK employment tribunal. The case dealt with the distinction between genuine self-employed persons excluded from…

Valerio De Stefano,* Ilda Durry,* Harry Stylogiannis,* Mathias Wouters* It started as an investigation into something long dismissed as an urban legend. Finally, even if far too late, the awful scale of the Parisian Ligue du LOL – internationally known as the LOL league – unfolded. Members of a private social media group had ‘cyber-harassed’ people for several years. Some commentators…

By Valerio De Stefano & Mathias Wouters    Should digital platforms be allowed to charge fees to workers to work? If ordinary rules were clearly applied to platform work, the answer would be a resounding “No”. Workers should, in theory, never be charged to get work. This norm stems directly from the principle that “labour is…

Antonio Aloisi, Valerio De Stefano, Six Silberman*  In 2017, Sarah O’Connor of the Financial Times published a sensible plea, gently chiding both doomsayers warning of a “jobless society” and “techno-fantasists” paying breathless homage to a digital future filled with exciting new professions. “We should worry less about the jobs that might be going,” wrote O’Connor—due,…

On January 22, the ILO launched its centenary celebrations by releasing the Report of its Global Commission on the Future of Work. The Report is the result of several years of research, consultation with the Governments and social partners of the ILO Members State and the work of the 28 members of the Global Commission, with…

The last couple of years have been momentous for platform work, with stories hitting the lines of major newspapers at least weakly, litigation sparkling globally and platform workers organising all around the world. It can be said that the curtain of invisibility initially surrounding platform workers has been lifted, at least partially. It is more…

The employment status of platform workers has been the subject of extensive litigation in the last couple of years. In many parts of the world, these workers have tried to obtain reclassification as employees in court. In a previous blog, I have highlighted how far too often the workers’ claims have been rejected on the…

In April 2018, the Labour Tribunal of Turin, Italy, rejected a claim from six platform workers of the food-delivery company, Foodora, seeking to be reclassified as employees.  In reaching his decision, the judge relied extensively on the fact that these workers were allegedly free to decide when to work and to disregard previously agreed shifts,…

On December 20, 2017, the CJEU passed a landmark case on the legal status of Uber.  On February 19, KU Leuven’s Faculty of Law will hold a conference on the legal status of online intermediaries in the platform economy. Members of the faculty experts in all the relevant branches of the law will comment on…

To date the debate on the “future of work” and technology has predominantly concentrated on the quantity of jobs that will be lost or gained because of automation. While this is certainly important, we should also be concerned about the quality of the jobs we are creating. Over the past few weeks, the news has…