Casual Work Arrangements and Platform-Based Work: The Casual Work Agenda as a Way to Enhance the Labour Protection of Platform Workers

Bulletin of Comparative Law and Labour Relations

About this book:

Casual Work Arrangements and Platform-Based Work is a trailblazing book offering in-depth research on specifically positioning platform work in the context of casual work arrangements. Platform work – in which work activities are channelled through web platforms or apps – has emerged as one of the major transitions in the world of work over the past decade. It presents several labour law issues related to casual work, often linked to insecure or precarious working conditions, such as unpredictable work schedules, an insecurity of work for the future, the lack of a stable income, and exclusion from even basic protections The author meticulously evaluates how strategies aimed at regulating casual work can be extended to enhance these insecure working conditions faced by platform workers.

What’s in this book:

In a nutshell, the issues and topics covered include the following:

• what is captured under the label of casual work arrangements;
• the shared features between casual work and platform work, with a focus on their insecure working conditions;
• the employment status insecurity;
• the insecurity of working hours;
• the uncertainty of the continuity of employment;
• the income insecurity;
• peculiar traits of platform work;
• the development of the EU regulatory matrix on casual work;
• the relevance of the directives on working time, fixed-term work, and transparent and predictable working conditions, for the protection of platform workers; and
• the improvement of the proposal for a Platform Work Directive in light of the above instruments. 

This compendium is a thorough comparative legal analysis of casual work in four industrialized countries – the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy – elucidating the divergent regulatory approaches to this work typology. Further, the book furnishes EU legislators’ efforts to establish a regulatory matrix on casual work, focusing on directives such as those on fixed-term work, working time, and transparent and predictable working conditions. The author sums it up with recommendations for redefining the EU legal initiative on platform work, in light of the national and EU legal instruments examined in this contribution. Issues, such as the insecure nature of work, unpaid standby time, and work insecurity, come to light.

How this will help you:

This vital book will aid policymakers and social partners to identify viable legal solutions to combat some of the labour protection challenges posed by platform work. At the same time, it will prove to be a reminder to EU policymakers that existing legal instruments on casual work constitute an available blueprint which could be beneficial in dealing with such regulatory difficulties. Finally, it will also provide legal scholars with an important insight into looking at platform work through the lens of casual work.