The legal status of platform workers
Do they have the right to form and to join trade unions
Siyami Alp Limoncuoglu, Izmir University of Economics
Gonca Yilmaz
The development of technology and the emergence of digital platforms has led to new forms of work organisation and task distribution. Digital platforms emerged by the combination of decentralized information networks, big data analytics and mobile digital devices. As a result of this, there has been a rise in non-standard forms of employment and work globally. A new type of employment is expressed as “platform work”.
According to Eurofound, “platform work” is an employment form in which organisations or individuals use an online platform to access other organisations or individuals to solve specific problems or to provide specific services in exchange for payment. The individuals who provide services through online platforms are called “platform workers”.
Although they are called “platform workers”, a strong legal argument has already risen on identifying whether the relationship between these people and the online platforms fits into the definition of the labour contract or not.
One of the most important court decisions about platform workers came from England. A U.K. employment tribunal judge ruled that Uber drivers should be classified as formal workers and not self-employed. As the decision was appealed, there was no final decision on the case yet. The Fair Work Commission (FWC) in Australia has determined (Klooger v Foodora Australia Pty Ltd [2018] FWC 6836, 16 November 2018) that a rider who works in one of these online platforms is an employee. In Italy, on the contrary, a recent ruling has found that platform workers are not employees (Tribunale di Milano, 10 settembre 2018, n. 1853.).
The concept of platform work and workers are not well known in Turkey. The subject is not debated in academic literature nor in case law. For this reason, the workers of these platforms does not have knowledge on their legal status and the rights arising from their relation with online platforms.
These arguments and contradictory rulings pose a challenge in industrial relations as well. Since the membership to the trade unions is only open to “employees”, the growing number of “platform workers” are faced with a big risk of not being able to protect their rights arising from employment via collective solidarity. The trade unions, on the other hand, have a potential to increase their members - if and only these people are accepted as employees - and to keep their place as a key role player in this new “gig-economy”.
The purpose of this work is to study whether the platform workers are employees who work under labour contracts or not and whether they are able to enjoy the freedom and the right to form and join trade unions.
