Working through platforms is a recent but fast-growing phenomenon, with obvious implications for workers’ rights. Discussions have so far focused on the status of platform-based workers, but, recently, a growing consensus is emerging by courts around the world that workers for platforms such as Uber are in fact employees. As a result, legal disputes are likely to shift, to a large extent, from status questions to working-time questions. This might seem like a very specific issue, but, in fact, it has crucial implications for the entire model of platform work, and addressing this question requires us to rethink some of the fundamental pillars of labour law, notably whether more room should be opened for flexibility and individual choice within this system. We argue that one aspect of the platform model – ‘work on demand,’ which allows workers to log into the app whenever they wish to do so – poses a difficulty. Workers should be compensated for the time they are ‘on call’ and available to work. But platforms can be expected to respond by assigning workers to pre-set shifts to avoid paying for an unknown amount of working hours, thereby dismantling the ‘on-demand’ model. Such a change would be welcomed by many employees, who will gain more security, but others can be expected to object to losing the flexibility which they value. We consider possible solutions that could allow workers to choose the ‘on-demand’ model. While rejecting the possibility of allowing employees to waive on-call compensation rights, we consider several intermediate solutions that ensure partial payments for this time or exempt employees with another full-time job. The proposed solutions are based on the understanding that more choice is preferable in labour law as long as we can protect the interests of the affected employees and eliminate the externalities that some choices might generate for other workers.

中文翻译：

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灵活性、选择和劳动法：按需平台的挑战

通过平台工作是最近出现但发展迅速的现象，对工人的权利具有明显的影响。迄今为止，讨论主要集中在基于平台的员工的地位上，但最近，世界各地的法院越来越达成共识，即优步等平台的员工实际上是员工。因此，法律纠纷很可能在很大程度上从身份问题转向工作时间问题。这似乎是一个非常具体的问题，但实际上，它对整个平台工作模式具有至关重要的影响，解决这个问题需要我们重新思考劳动法的一些基本支柱，特别是是否应该开放更多空间在这个系统中的灵活性和个人选择。我们认为平台模型的一个方面——“按需工作，'这让员工可以随时登录应用程序——这带来了困难。工人应该在他们“待命”和可以工作的时间得到补偿。但是，可以期望平台通过将工人分配到预先设定的班次来做出回应，以避免支付未知数量的工作时间，从而拆除“按需”模式。这种变化会受到许多员工的欢迎，他们将获得更多的安全感，但其他人可能会反对失去他们所重视的灵活性。我们考虑了可能允许工人选择“按需”模式的解决方案。在拒绝允许员工放弃随叫随到补偿权利的可能性的同时，我们考虑了几种中间解决方案，以确保在这段时间内获得部分报酬或免除员工的另一份全职工作。