Towards better working conditions for persons performing services through digital labour platforms
| Author | Caroline Cauffman |
| DOI | 10.1177/1023263X221085234 |
| Published date | 01 February 2022 |
| Date | 01 February 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
Towards better working
conditions for persons
performing services through
digital labour platforms
Caroline Cauffman*
Online platforms created new ways for people to make a living. Not only did they make it easier
for small producers and resellers to find potential clients via online marketplaces; they also
created online markets for the provision of services. The example that usually comes to mind
when thinking of this latter type of online platforms is Uber, but there is an enormous number of
such platforms, and they are active in very different fields: passenger transport, food delivery, trans-
lation, programming, proofreading, web design, etc. About 500 labour platforms appear to be active
in the EU.
1
These platforms generally present themselves as mere online intermediaries, offering a place
where supply and demand for services can meet. They also stress the freedom of the service pro-
vider to organize its own work, to work when, where and as many hours as desired. In their
view, this implies that the persons providing services via their platform are self-employed and
not employees. Several studies indicated that 9 out 10 platforms classify their workers as self-
employed.
2
Another study found that most of these workers ‘are genuinely autonomous in their
work and can use platform work as a way to develop their entrepreneurial activities’.
3
*
Faculty of Law, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands, and University of Hasselt, Hasselt, Belgium
Corresponding author:
Caroline Cauffman, Faculty of Law, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands, and University of Hasselt, Hasselt,
Belgium.
Email: caroline.cauffman@maastrichtuniversity.nl
1. Commission Staff Working Document Impact Assessment Report, Accompanying the document Proposal for a
Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council to improve the working conditions in platform work in the
European Union, SWD(2021) 396 final/2, p. 9; Commission Staff Working Document, Executive Summary of the
Impact Assessment Report Accompanying the document Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of
the Council on improving working conditions in platform work, SWD(2021) 397 final, p. 3.
2. Eurofound, Exploring Self-employment in the European Union (Publications Office of the European Union, 2017), p. 10;
W. De Groen et al., Digital Labour Platforms in the EU: Mapping and Business Models (2021).
3. According to the Commission Staff Working Document, SWD(2021) 397 final, p. 2: ‘There are around 28 million
people who are estimated to work through platforms in the EU. 22.5 million of these people are believed to be correctly
Editorial
Maastricht Journal of European and
Comparative Law
2022, Vol. 29(1) 3–8
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1023263X221085234
maastrichtjournal.sagepub.com
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