10 THE ITALIAN LAW JOURNAL NOS. 1-2 (2024)
Platform Work and Trade Union Participation: European and American Perspectives
by Massimiliano Delfino and Charles Szymanski This contribution analyses the role of trade unions in regulating platform work in the European Union and the United States. First, a review of the situation in the EU is provided. The proposal for a directive on platform work of 2021, whose latest version was addressed in March 2024, is examined, placing it in a broader context since the European Union is trying to contribute to regulating that type of work far beyond that proposal, as it is evident from the most recent version of the proposal for a regulation on Artificial Intelligence. More generally, an attempt is made to show that the European social partners are essential in using digitalisation as a ground, at least to maintain their space within the framework of a traditional role more akin to that played by national social actors. On a more particular level, the contribution deals with the social partners’ spaces in the information and consultation procedures provided for in the draft directive, the draft regulation and the agreements signed in recent years at the European level. Next, the situation in the US is reviewed. Unions have a weaker position in the US as compared to the EU, and labor law regulation is generally less favourable. Moreover, regulation of the status of platform workers (as independent contractors or employees) is even more fragmented in the US, with regulation determined state by state, and at the federal level, even statute by statute. As a result, the focus of unions has been 1) to support litigation and lobbying efforts to change the status of platform workers to that of employees, so that they can be represented in collective bargaining, and 2) to provide support and advice to platform workers even where they are not considered to be employees. The authors conclude that unions and collective action have a critical role in improving the conditions of platform workers in both the EU and US, although their prospects are greater in the EU at least in the near to medium term. DOI 10.23815/2421-2156.ITALJ ISSN 2421-2156
