Telework as autonomous work: a legal evaluation of time- and place-independent working

Telework is on the rise on labour markets around the world, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The consequences of telework have become noticeable and created many questions for teleworkers, their employers and policy actors. The rising phenomenon of telework fits in a broader evolution referred to as ‘New Ways of Working’ (the New WoW). A significant ‘new WoW’ is autonomous work, covering timeand place-independent work by means of ICT. In this project autonomous work will be studied as the exponential format of telework. With the expanding practice of autonomous work, we move far away from the traditional 20th century work models which formed the basis of modern labour law. As regulations in labour law arise from the those traditional relations, they have not foreseen and are not sufficiently equipped to cope with the new challenges of more autonomous work, including telework. The time and placeindependent character of telework is at odds with different traditional concepts. A discrepancy clearly exists between the way work is performed in the new world of work and the way work is regulated in labour law. The purpose of this research project is to analyse and evaluate current and possible future legal approaches of telework, conceptualised as autonomous work. This is done through a lens of modernising labour law, taking into account possible paradigmatic shifts in labour law, including stepping away from a ‘one-size-fits-all approach’.