Status of Workers on Digital Platforms – Remarks From a Polish Labour Law Perspective

Abstract

Digital solutions have changed the way workers perform their work. We can now see more flexible forms of employment, moving towards a series of individual tasks or gig-work projects. A decisive influence on the changes in employment is the development of digital platforms, which has intensified with the COVID-19 pandemic. Employment through digital platforms is not a classical form of performing work; nevertheless, there is no doubt that it requires a specific legal regime for the protection of workers’ rights. The current study explores the following themes: first, it examines the complexity of digital platforms and platform work. Second, it focuses on provisions related to obtaining a correct employment status by platform workers in the directive on improving working conditions in platform work (2024/2831) and how this status affects their rights. Lastly, it presents de lege ferenda postulates from the perspective of the Polish labour market.