The recent spread of working models far removed from the type of employee in the Fordist factory, questions the jurists on the topicality and effectiveness of the protections guaranteed by the complex of labour law regulations and, in particular, by the Workers' Statute, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2020. These assessments must be conducted in the light of the profound changes in the economic and social context brought about by the expansion of the web economy and the platform economy. The differentiation of work models generates a fracture in the constitutional order, due to the legislator's difficulty in implementing the protective programme of article 35 of the Constitution, in correspondence with the points of greatest friction between the subjective scope of the Statute, designed for subordinate workers, and the vast area occupied by the weak workers deserving new protections, in particular those operating in the platform economy. The project aims to verify, through comparative analysis and with attention to transnational economic contexts, the adaptability and the persistent usefulness of the protection model prefigured by the Italian Workers' Statute. The analysis will focus in particular on the rights enshrined in Title I of Law 300 of 1970, which guarantee the free expression of the person in the work context and which, for this reason, have the highest degree of adaptability. However, the collective safeguards guaranteed by law cannot be overlooked, also in view of a rethinking of the participation model in business contexts characterised by a high rate of dematerialisation. Finally, the project will not neglect the comparison with other legal systems and the analysis of European Union law.
The research on the protection of on-demand workers is moving on a relatively unfathomed ground, also and above all because of the speed with which technological progress manifests itself, decidedly high compared to the politics¿s response capacities and therefore of law. The attempts to map the existing in terms of solutions adopted and proposed solutions are then frustrated by the polarization of the debate: on the one hand, the apologists for technological development, inclined to perceive any regulatory intervention as an obstacle, on the other hand, those who reject that development and demand, therefore, a particularly penetrating, if not imperative, discipline. All this cannot represent a valid starting point for a phenomenon that the health emergency has brought to the fore: in times of social distancing and at times of isolation, the consumption of goods has been largely supported by the use of platforms.
It is plausible that the dramatic increase in unemployment levels will not be immediately reabsorbed or in any case not within the traditional forms of entrepreneurship: even the economic crisis following the health emergency will most likely be accompanied by a further expansion of work on demand. In particular, the Workers' Statute, during its drafting, had as a reference model the subordinate employment relationship in the medium-large enterprise of Fordist style and a first innovative feature of this project consists in the attempt to identify lines of evolution, critical issues and common solutions within the most current legal system, also through the progressive penetration of the values of the European Economic Union, with reference to the evolution of the historical/social context that began with the first twenty years of the 21st century, also due to the health emergency in progress, as well as the economic crisis.
People believe that one of the consequences of the economic crisis will be the strengthening of the trend towards deregulation of the employment relationship, in the wake of a ten-year trend that is now increasingly degrading it to any market relationship. The study of on-demand work, as the extreme expression of this trend, thus makes it possible to address issues that go well beyond the specific field in which deregulation is more evident.
Another innovative profile of the project is related to trade union representation, starting from the comparison and analysis of the Statute with the T.U. 2014 and with the so-called Factory Agreement 2018. In this context, the project will make it possible to identify and support new forms of trade union representation for platform workers.
Moreover, the project is also relevant to the analysis of the most recent reforms in the field of labour law, as of Decree-Law no. 138/2011 and Legislative Decree no. 81/2015, but not neglecting Law No 81/2017, Decree-Law no. 87/2018 and Decree-Law no. 101/2019, which for the first time will be examined through a comparative survey. This survey will allow an advancement of knowledge in the transit from the culture of the factory to the Gig-economy above all on two aspects of the same discipline:
- the progressive overcoming of the mandatory rule that regulated the relationship between collective agreements of different levels
- the function of the company contract and the downsizing of the mandatory rule, which regulates the individual employment relationship.
Another important advancement of knowledge will be achieved, thanks to the project, especially through an innovative study of the rules of the Statute, observed from the perspective of the Gig-economy.
The last two innovative aspects of the project are linked. The first one will limit the current inability of subordination to function as a criterion for the identification of subjects deserving protection, while the second, due to the results obtained by the first, will help to determine the reasons why it will be possible to apply the Statute beyond subordination in the era of the gig-economy.
Moreover, the study of the discipline of work at the time of the platform economy must necessarily move from an interdisciplinary perspective and dialogue with other social sciences. The legal comparison is particularly indicated to provide results in line with these aims, because it considers a plurality of national laws, removing them from conceptualism and enhancing the extra-legal context in which they are rooted. The result are normative models that, also in consideration of the diversities, can represent points of reference for an advancement of law.