New report on the future of work and gig economy developments

The new report “The future of work: litigating labour relationships in the gig economy”, released by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, indicates that “the gig economy is the frontline in the battle for the future of labour rights”. It states that the new technology has enabled start-ups like Uber and Deliveroo to become international corporations with only a few employees and with the majority of its workforce misclassified as self-employed. This business model is based on not paying for workers’ social protection and seriously jeopardise labour rights. The report includes facts and figures on the development of the gig economy across the world, recent case law defying the self-employment status of workers in the sector, and stakeholder responses. The report calls on online intermediary companies to classify their workers as employees with full labour rights and protections, to eliminate forced arbitrations clauses from their contracts, and to “introduce human rights policies with proper remediation to live up to their responsibilities under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Human Rights”. The report also argued that legislative reforms are necessary to incentivize sharing economy companies to classify their workers as employees. Deliveroo responded by saying that flexible work enabled by sharing economy platforms is the new way of working and “is here to stay”.