Regulating platform work: How will this impact migrant workers?

To further improve the EU’s actions in this area, the attention of policy makers should focus on three objectives: preserving or enhancing the positive elements in the original Commission’s proposal, ensuring that some of the key amendments put forward by the EP are given full effect in the future, and closing down other gaps in the broader EU policy framework.

This Paper offers six recommendations on how to move forward:
 

1. Strike the right balance between retaining flexibility for genuine self-employed platform workers and enhancing protection through reclassification.
2. Guarantee transparency and ensure non-discrimination in algorithmic management.
3. Introduce effective measures against the risk of subcontracting and ensure the liability of subcontracting chains.
4. Facilitate the involvement of civil society organisations with specific expertise on migrants’ rights as well as trade unions involved in defending the rights of platform workers to enhance the enforcement of rights and protections.
5. Put in place binding measures to establish ‘firewalls’ for platform migrant workers who lodge complaints in the context of inspections by the labour authorities.
6. Promote better access to the labour market for migrant workers and consider regularisation channels for undocumented migrants as the most effective way to prevent or fight exploitation.