The Newest Form of Precarious Work: Digital Platform Work

Dr. Hazal Tolu Yılmaz*

Economic and technological developments, which gained serious momentum in the 90s, have changed production methods. With the transition from the industrial society to the post-industrial society, the employment contract has started to go beyond its previous boundaries. During this period, atypical forms of work characterized by flexibility and reduced security emerged. In the era of Industry 4.0, platform work has joined these forms of work.

Because workers are classified as independent contractors in this model, the platform work has come with new problems to be solved by labour lawyers. The biggest problem in this regard is that platform workers cannot benefit from the guarantees arising from the employment and social security law. Apart from this, informal work, social dumping, lack of occupational health and safety, information asymmetry and lack of communication, social isolation, discrimination, and difficulty in unionization are other negative features of this type of work. In this book, how digital labour platforms affected working life has been analyzed and regulation of the platform work has been discussed.

For the full text of this blog post in Turkish, please click here.

Key words: Platform economy, digital platform workers, employee-like persons, employee, independent contractor

* Galatasaray University Law School, Department of Labor and Social Security Law