- What is the problem/issue being addressed?
Work on Demand was motivated by an interest, empirical and normative, in the continued viability of systems of labour law that are broadly speaking protective of workers’ interests. Such systems typically aim to ensure a set of at least minimum terms and conditions and, at a societal level, some measure of wage and income equality. For several decades, the continued existence of protective labour laws – together with institutions designed to allow for the collective interest representation of workers and collective regulation of working relationships – had been threatened as a result of myriad pressures associated with globalization and deindustrialization. Since the economic crisis of 2008, and consequent ushering in of an age of austerity, the threat had intensified. When the WorkOD project began, concern regarding the weakening of labour standards and the dismantling of collective representative and regulatory institutions was widely shared by scholars in the field of labour law. Across Europe, and beyond, the dominant discourse was one of crisis in the discipline: old ways of thinking about the subject, of describing and analysing it, had seemed increasingly inadequate, but new ways were yet to be found.
- Why is it important for society?
The consequences for individuals and societies as a whole of the weakening of labour rights and protections are strongly contested but there is evidence to suggest that this has contributed to a widening of the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest in our societies. Wealth inequalities and economic insecurity have been linked, meanwhile, to resurgent nationalism and the growing popularity of extremist political parties in several European states and elsewhere.
- What are the overall objectives?
The project aimed:
i. To develop a new research methodology appropriate to the study of contracting for work understood as an example of private ordering that is shaped directly and indirectly by the complex of applicable legal rules and institutions and by other aspects of the social and economic context.
ii. Through the development of this new research methodology, to identify also a new paradigm for labour law as a field of scholarship.
iii. Using the new research methodology, to explain trends in the field including, in particular, the increased use of forms of contract which are designed to shift the burden of risk from the employer to the worker, including those typical of task- or ‘gig’-based work in the on-demand economy.
iv. In light of the changing nature of contracting for work so explained, to assess the significance of particular laws and labour market institutions as mechanisms for the protection of workers’ interests and the achievement of a variety of public policy goals.
