Non‐standard workers and freedom of association: a critical analysis of restrictions to collective rights from a human rights perspective *. WP CSDLE “Massimo D’Antona”.INT – 123/2015

This article deals with the collective labour law aspects of the labour protection of non-standard workers. It aims at contributing to further the debate on the need to adapt existing regulatory frameworks and policy strategies to face the growth of the non-standard workforce in recent decades. Arguably, a vast part of this debate has concentrated on issues related to individual employment law and social security. Less attention has been given, instead, to the questions that the emergence of non-standard work in modern labour markets poses to the regulation of collective rights, and in particular of collective action. This article argues that many of the existing limitations and restrictions to the right to collective bargaining and the right to strike disproportionately affect non-standard workers. Indeed, in some cases, these restrictions go as far as denying, legally or as a matter of fact, access of non-standard workers to collective rights. This article, thus, is meant at reorienting part of the current legal and policy debate on nonstandard work on its collective dimensions. It provides examples of limitations that hamper the exercise of collective rights in a way that fails to keep pace with the changes occurred in labour markets and societies at large in recent decades, such as the increased number of workers involved in non-standard forms of employment, but also globalisation and some of the related consequences on business and work organisation. It also examines whether these limitations, many of which were formulated to address the economic and legal landscapes existing at the time of their enactment, are still fit to govern current labour markets or whether they have become unreasonably burdensome for the present. In doing so, constant reference will be to a legal development that has occurred since some of the existing standards on collective action were introduced, namely the evolution of the rationale of the right to strike “from being a weapon in collective bargaining into an individual human right”, remarked by Professor Sir Bob Hepple QC, in one of his last works. In this perspective, this article argues that existing regulations of the right to strike should be reassessed to investigate whether they are compatible with the “human right” status of the right to strike and in particular whether they are necessary, in democratic societies, to ensure the fulfilment of other basic needs, in particular the exercise of other human rights

The EU Commission’s proposal for a Directive on Platform Work: an overview.

This article discusses the proposal for the EU Directive on Platform Work. While welcoming the proposal advanced by the Commission, it highlights some of its shortcomings and suggests more robust protection both for the draft Chapter on the presumption of employment, which risks being vastly ineffective, and the Chapter on algorithmic management, whose protection needs a full extension to the self-employed, more substantial collective rights for workers, and broadening the scope to the entire EU workforce

Essential jobs, remote work and digital surveillance: Addressing the COVID-19 pandemic panopticon

An unprecedented COVID-19-induced explosion in digital surveillance has reconfigured power relationships in professional settings. This article critically concentrates on the interplay between technology-enabled intrusive monitoring and the augmentation of 1 managerial prerogatives in physical and digital workplaces. It identifies excessive supervision as the common denominator of “essential” and “remotable” activities, besides discussing the various drawbacks faced by the two categories of workers during (and after) the pandemic. It also assesses the adequacy of the current European Union legal framework in addressing the expansion of data-driven management. Social dialogue, workers’ empowerment and digital literacy are identified as effective solutions to promote organizational flexibility, well-being and competitiveness

Algorithmic management and collective bargaining

This article addresses the challenges raised by the introduction of algorithmic management and artificial intelligence in the world of work, focusing on the risks that new managerial technologies present for fundamental rights and principles, such as non-discrimination, freedom of association and the right to privacy. The article argues that collective bargaining is the most suitable regulatory instrument for responding to these challenges, and that current EU legislative initiatives do not adequately recognise the role of collective bargaining in this area. It also maps current initiatives undertaken by national trade union movements in Europe to govern algorithmic management

AI and digital tools in workplace management and evaluation: An assessment of the EU\u27s legal framework

This study focuses on options for regulating the use of AI enabled and algorithmic management systems in the world of work under EU law. The first part describes how these technologies are already being deployed, particularly in recruitment, staff appraisal, task distribution and disciplinary procedures. It discusses some near-term potential development prospects and presents an impact assessment, highlighting some of these technologies\u27 most significant implications. The second part addresses the regulatory field. It examines the different EU regulations and directives that are already relevant to regulating the use of AI in employment. Subsequently, it analyses the potential labour and employment implications of the European Commission\u27s proposal for a regulation laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (AI act). Finally, it summarises the other ongoing EU policy debates relevant to the regulation of AI at work. The third and final part of this study reflects in detail upon the AI act and its potential impact on the existing EU social acquis. On this basis, it advances potential policy options across different EU legislative files, including but not limited to the AI act, to ensure that regulation keeps pace with technological development. It also argues that the AI act should \u27serve\u27 and complement – rather than over-ride – other regulatory standards that can already govern the introduction and use of AI-enabled and algorithmic-management systems at work

Between risk mitigation and labour rights enforcement: Assessing the transatlantic race to govern AI-driven decision-making through a comparative lens

In this article, we provide an overview of efforts to regulate the various phases of the artificial intelligence (AI) life cycle. In doing so, we examine whether—and, if so, to what extent—highly fragmented legal frameworks are able to provide safeguards capable of preventing the dangers that stem from AI- and algorithm-driven organisational practices. We critically analyse related developments at the European Union (EU) level, namely the General Data Protection Regulation, the draft AI Regulation, and the proposal for a Directive on improving working conditions in platform work. We also consider bills and regulations proposed or adopted in the United States and Canada via a transatlantic comparative approach, underlining analogies and variations between EU and North American attitudes towards the risk assessment and management of AI systems. We aim to answer the following questions: Is the widely adopted risk-based approach fit for purpose? Is it consistent with the actual enforcement of fundamental rights at work, such as privacy, human dignity, equality and collective rights? To answer these questions, in section 2 we unpack the various, often ambiguous, facets of the notion(s) of ‘risk’—that is, the common denominator with the EU and North American legal instruments. Here, we determine that a scalable, decentralised framework is not appropriate for ensuring the enforcement of constitutional labour-related rights. In addition to presenting the key provisions of existing schemes in the EU and North America, in section 3 we disentangle the consistencies and tensions between the frameworks that regulate AI and constrain how it must be handled in specific contexts, such as work environments and platform-orchestrated arrangements. Paradoxically, the frenzied race to regulate AI-driven decision-making could exacerbate the current legal uncertainty and pave the way for regulatory arbitrage. Such a scenario would slow technological innovation and egregiously undermine labour rights. Thus, in section 4 we advocate for the adoption of a dedicated legal instrument at the supranational level to govern technologies that manage people in workplaces. Given the high stakes involved, we conclude by stressing the salience of a multi-stakeholder AI governance framework

The Future Concept of Work

This chapter offers a reappraisal of the idea of ‘personal work’ and a critical assessment of the concept of subordination, which shapes the traditional contract of employment and subordinate work. The authors suggest that the notion of personal work may be more useful in attempts to develop a newly conceptualised concept of human labour, one capable of incorporating certain dimensions of (unpaid) gendered labour, ‘heteromated’ labour (‘heteromation’ is the extraction of economic value from low-cost or free labour in computer-mediated networks), and other forms of socially (and ecologically) valuable labour that hitherto have been excluded from the realm of formal, protected and paid employment

Essential jobs, remote work and digital surveillance: addressing the COVID-19 pandemic panopticon

COVID-19-induced digital surveillance has ballooned in an unprecedented fashion, causing a reconfiguration of power relationships in professional settings. This article critically concentrates on the interplay between technology-enabled intrusive monitoring and the managerial prerogatives augmentation in physical and digital workplaces. It portrays excessive control as the common denominator for “essential” and “remotable” activities, besides discussing the various drawbacks of the two categories of workers during the pandemic. It also assesses the adequacy of the current EU legal framework in addressing the expansion of data-driven management. Social dialogue, empowerment and digital literacy are identified as effective solutions to promote organisational flexibility, well-being and competitiveness

Building irregularity issues and architectural design in seismic areas

When designing buildings in seismic areas, choices of the architectural designer heavily influences seismic structural performances. Namely, building morphology may lead to complex seismic responses as it occurs when building plan and elevation become irregular. Typical irregularities are due to architectural, functional and distribution constraints, thus leading to plan or vertical or combined plan/vertical irregularities. A frequent plan-wise irregularity arises when earthquake resistant structures, such as cores and shear walls, are concentrated on one side of the building plan, while vertical irregularity often arises from the presence of soft stories especially located at the ground level or, less frequently, at an intermediate level. In the last decades, some trends in architectural design, such as Deconstructivism and other contemporary theories, worked in pursuing architectural solutions based on the concept of �deconstruction� in place of �construction�, favoring non-rigid schemes, non-regular shapes and, more generally, avoiding geometric rules and classical canons of symmetry and regularity. In this paper the above issues are investigated with the goal of assessing effects of irregularity conditions, introduced by the architectural design, on the building seismic performances with the aim at not forbidding the designer ambitions but at making him aware of the effects of his architectural choices