Study to gather evidence on the working conditions of platform workers.

This study, which was commissioned by the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion of the European Commission, investigates the working conditions and access to social protection of workers in the platform economy. Although the body of research on platform work is rapidly growing, a comprehensive mapping of the challenges faced by platform workers as regards their working conditions and social protection, and of the suggested and available responses to those challenges at the national level and EU level is largely absent. This study, which is carried out by a consortium compsed of CEPS, Eftheia and HIVA-KU Leuven, aims to overcome this issue by first identifying and mapping the specific challenges regarding working conditions and access to social protection that arise from the features that characterise platform work, taking a broad perspective (considering, e.g. individual and collective rights, employment status and access to social security, equal treatment, the role of technology in shaping employment relations and work organisation and related topics). In a second step, an overview will be compiled of the national responses to the challenges identified, including policy measures, legislation, collective agreements, case-law and other actions (e.g. self-regulation of platforms), and a typology of these responses will be developed. The third step of the project is devoted to the analysis of the relevance and possible application of a selected number of EU pieces or areas of legislation to platform work (e.g. Directives related to non-standard work, work-life balance, anti-discrimination or individual rights). In the final step, the study will address the question whether there are challenges regarding platform work that would call for EU action, how significant those challenges would be and how they would develop in the absence of EU action. The geographical scope of the study is the EU28, Norway and Iceland. The study covers time period 2013-2019. Methodologically, the study relies on a combination of desk research and field work, including stakeholder interviews, focus group discussions, two expert surveys and a validation workshop.