10.6092/issn.1561-8048/15233
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.
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The EU Commission’s proposal for a Directive on Platform Work: an overview
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The EU Commission’s proposal for a Directive on Platform Work: an overview
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The EU Commission’s proposal for a Directive on Platform Work:                              Italian Labour Law e-Journal
an overview                                                                                        Issue 1, Vol. 15 (2022)
Valerio De Stefano                                                                                       ISSN 1561-8048
vdestefano@osgoode.yorku.ca                                               https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1561-8048/15233




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

 1. Introduction. 2. The “primacy of facts” principle and the presumption of employment
 status: revise and resubmit. 3. Algorithmic management and platform work: techno-
 determinism and glimmers of regulation. 4. The proposed Directive, more favourable
 provisions, and the potentially deregulating effects of the EU “Artificial Intelligence Act”.

                                                        Abstract

     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.

     Keyword: Platform work; Algorithmic management; Presumption of employment; Self-
     employment.



 1. Introduction.

    In December 2021, the European Commission presented a "package" of measures about
 platform work in the European Union, which included a proposal for a Directive on
 Platform Work and a draft for a Communication of the Commission regarding “Guidelines
 on the application of EU competition law to collective agreements regarding the working
 conditions of solo self-employed persons”.1 An initiative on platform work had been
 announced since the earliest days of the legislature by Vice-President Vestager and was
 expressly mentioned in President von der Leyen’s “mission letter” to Commissioner Schmit.2

 
   Canada Research Chair in Innovation, Law and Society, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto.
 This research was undertaken, in part, thanks to funding from the Canada Research Chairs Program. This essay
 has been submitted to a double-blind peer review.
 1 See Aloisi A.; Georgiou D., Two steps forward, one step back: the EU’s plans for improving gig working conditions, in Ada

 Lovelace Institute Blog, 7 April 2022, available at: https://www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/blog/eu-gig-
 economy/; Rosin A., Towards a European Employment Status: The EU Proposal for a Directive on Improving Working
 Conditions in Platform Work, in Industrial Law Journal, advance articles, published online 30 May 2022.
 2 Espinoza J.,Vestager says gig economy workers should ‘team up’ on wages, in Financial Times, 24 October 2019,

 available at: https://www.ft.com/content/0cafd442-f673-11e9-9ef3-eca8fc8f2d65. The text of the mission
 letter to Commissioner Schmit is available at:
 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/sites/default/files/commissioner_mission_letters/missio
 n-letter-nicolas-schmit_en.pdf.
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The “package” presented by the Commission is arguably one of the most important
legislative initiatives taken by the European Union in the labour and social fields in recent
years. In this short contribution, I discuss some of the most critical elements of the proposal
for a Directive, being aware that other articles in this monographic volume will address these
elements more specifically and extensively.


2. The “primacy of facts” principle and the presumption of employment status: revise
and resubmit.

    The first crucial set of provisions of the Directive would address the employment status
of platform workers. Chapter II opens by providing that the Member States must put in
place procedures to ensure the correct classification of the contractual arrangement between
a platform and its workers, "with a view to ascertaining the existence of an employment
relationship” between these parties and “ensuring that they enjoy the rights deriving from
Union law applicable to workers". To achieve this aim, Article 3 of the Directive also
provides that "the determination of the existence of an employment relationship shall be
guided primarily by the facts relating to the actual performance of work, taking into account
the use of algorithms in the organisation of platform work, irrespective of how the
relationship is classified in any contractual arrangement that may have been agreed between
the parties involved”.
    This provision is a restatement of the principle of "primacy of facts", whereby the
substance must prevail over form in determining employment status. This idea is hardly
novel, as most jurisdictions worldwide follow this principle, whether in light of specific legal
provisions or through case law.3 Moreover, the principle is also a core tenet of the ILO
Employment Relationship Recommendation, 2006 (No. 198), expressly recalled in Recital
(21) of the proposed Directive. Notably, the Directive on transparent and predictable
working conditions in the European Union already referred to this principle in its Recital (8).
    Its inclusion in the proposed Directive on platform work, while not surprising, should be
welcomed. Firstly, the proposal would expressly establish this principle in an article of the
Directive, giving it an explicit legislative sanction instead of confining it in its Recitals. This
is all the more critical when addressing a sector like platform work, where the
misclassification of contractual arrangements is rampant, and platforms almost invariably
dictate terms and conditions of work through boilerplate, and often merely cosmetical,
clauses affirming a relationship of self-employment between the parties. Moreover, article 3
explicitly states that in considering the "actual performance of work", adjudicators must
consider the use of algorithms in the organisation of platform work. Here, the Directive
clearly states that, in the field of platform work, managerial control and supervision that can
result in the reclassification of a contractual arrangement into an employment relationship
can also occur through “algorithmic management”. The Directive, thus, codifies the acquis


3See the discussion at International Labour Office, Non-Standard Employment around the World. Understanding
Challenges, Shaping Prospects, 2016, 263.

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of several courts in Europe, particularly the French and Spanish Supreme Courts, according
to which control and subordination can also stem from technological forms of management.4
   Articles 4 and 5 of the Directive provide a rebuttable presumption of employment
between a “digital labour platform that controls […] the performance of work and a person
performing platform work through that platform”. In turn, “controlling the performance of
work" is understood as fulfilling at least two out of these five indicators:

       a) effectively determining, or setting upper limits for the level of remuneration;
       b) requiring the person performing platform work to respect specific binding rules with
          regard to appearance, conduct towards the recipient of the service or performance
          of the work;
       c) supervising the performance of work or verifying the quality of the results of the
          work including by electronic means;
       d) effectively restricting the freedom, including through sanctions, to organise one’s
          work, in particular the discretion to choose one’s working hours or periods of
          absence, to accept or to refuse tasks or to use subcontractors or substitutes;
       e) effectively restricting the possibility to build a client base or to perform work for any
          third party.

   A rebuttable presumption of an employment relationship in a field that, as already
mentioned, is extensively afflicted by misclassification is, in principle, a welcome instrument.
However, one cannot help but notice that the current formulation of the presumption risk
being scarcely useful at best and even counterproductive in some cases.
   The indicators in letters b), c), and d), in fact, are arguably – per se – strong indicia or
even dispositive elements that could trigger reclassification into employment status in several
European countries. For instance, one can hardly think of a more apt definition of the
control and subordination that is sufficient to determine employment status than one party
“effectively restricting the freedom, including through sanctions, to organise [the other
party’s] work”. Yet, if the Directive were adopted as it is now, this element would be
"declassed" to just one of the several indicators that, in addition to another one, could trigger
a rebuttable presumption of employment. In other words, platforms could restrict the
freedom of workers to organise their work and could still prove that this should not result
in a reclassification even if one of the other indicators above is met.
   Supervising the performance of work, verifying the quality of the results, and requiring to
respect specific binding rules should also already be very strong indicia of the existence of
an employment relationship. Proving their existence could arguably be enough to obtain a
reclassification in several jurisdictions, as occurred in the last two years in several Member
States. In any case, if either of them is met there arguably should be no need to fulfil another
indicator to trigger a presumption of employment that can still be rebutted. If these indicators
are not significantly revisited, the risk is that some courts will set a very high bar to consider


4For a global review of the case law concerning the employment status of platform workers, see De Stefano V.,
Durri I., Stylogiannis C., Wouters D., Platform work and the employment relationship, ILO Working Paper No. 27.

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each one fulfilled, possibly as high as the one to find "control" or "subordination" based on
traditional domestic criteria. This would be an erroneous and overly stringent interpretation,
as these indicators are designated as elements that can cumulatively amount to "control" and,
therefore, the supervision or the imposition of the binding rules should not be as intense as
the ones already sufficient to find control under existing standards. Nonetheless, if the draft
Directive is not revised, its practical application could paradoxically make it more difficult
for platform workers to challenge their employment status in some European countries.
    The indicator at a) for now, seems the one that could more easily be mobilised in court
and, contrary to the indicator at e), it would also be more difficult for platform to avoid it by
merely including and tweaking sham clauses in their terms and conditions. The indicator at
a), however, would not be triggered in most cases of online platform work but also for many
offline activities, such as domestic work, where it is more often the client that is allowed by
the platform to set a compensation unilaterally. This is all the more problematic because the
other indicators also seem harder to meet in court for these activities. Accordingly, one of
the most important and positive features of the proposed Directive – its ambition to cover
every form of platform work, either online or offline – could thus remain a dead letter in
practice.
    The proposal, as it stands, appears to be hardly “futureproof” – online platform work will
scarcely be affected by the Directive, also leaving the EU labour market unprotected against
the possible future waves of sham outsourcing of work activities that can be executed
remotely;5 in this respect, the lack of any specific provision to govern the conflicts of laws
potentially arising if a person performing platform work is based in a different country from
the platform is also particularly concerning. Moreover, offline platform work beyond the
sectors where courts have already reclassified workers as employees, such as delivery and
transportation, could also remain largely unaffected by the Directive.
    It is thus not surprising that a draft report on the Directive introduced in the European
Parliament proposes to change the presumption materially.6 Under this report, the rebuttable
presumption of employment status would operate for all digital labour platforms, defined in
article 2 as “any natural or legal person using computer programs and procedures for
intermediating, supervising or organising in any way the work performed by individuals,
irrespective of whether that work is performed online or in a certain location”. The indicators
previously included in article 4 would now be modified and only included in a Recital.
    The aim of these amendments seems to make the presumption more effective by avoiding
its application being frustrated, among other things, by the criticalities that emerged before.
While this is arguably a positive development, even if the presumption was thus broadened,
its operation could still be materially hampered if the possibility for its rebuttal is not also
somehow tightened. Neither the current proposal of the Commission nor the draft report's
amendments pose meaningful limits to how the presumption can be rebutted. The

5 Countouris N., De Stefano V., Working from a distance: remote or removed?, in Social Europe, 16 June 2022, available
at: https://socialeurope.eu/working-from-a-distance-remote-or-removed.
6 Draft Report on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on improving working conditions in

platform work (COM(2021)0762 – C9-0454/2021 – 2021/0414(COD)), Committee on Employment and Social
Affairs, Rapporteur: Elisabetta Gualmini, 3 May 2022.

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Commission's proposal would also primarily rely on the national definitions of employment
relationships "with consideration to the case law of the Court of Justice". If this was the final
formulation of the Directive, in any Member State with a particularly narrow definition of an
employment relationship, whether in its legislation or case law, platforms would be able to
neutralise any presumption of employment by simply relying on overly stringent national
traditional criteria that ignore the peculiarities of platform work. This risk may be mitigated
if the amendments proposed in the draft report were adopted since the Court of Justice of
the EU would have a broader possibility to interpret Chapter III more purposively and the
criteria used by the Court of Justice in determining the existence of an employment
relationship are traditionally more generous than many national ones (albeit, undoubtedly,
the Court’s approach to platform work in its Yodel decision left much to be desired)7. Even
in that case, however, it would seem necessary for the Directive to provide more stringent
requirements to rebut the presumption to ensure its effectiveness in all the Member States.
    This consideration is crucial since the presumption risks being confined to statutes on the
books unless more fine-tuned criteria that make it more difficult to rebut the presumption
and actually shift the burden of proving the existence of a genuine self-employment
relationship on platforms are adopted. Otherwise, the presumption risks being effective only
in those countries where the lawmakers and courts had already adapted the criteria for the
determination of the existence of an employment relationship to address the employment
status of platform workers – in other words, the presumption included in the Directive would
be largely irrelevant.


3. Algorithmic management and platform work: techno-determinism and glimmers
of regulation.

   Chapter III of the proposed Directive introduces protection in case of algorithmic
management. Article 6 mandates to inform platform workers about the existence and the
specific scope of “(a) automated monitoring systems which are used to monitor, supervise
or evaluate the work performance of platform workers through electronic means” and “(b)
automated decision-making systems which are used to take or support decisions that
significantly affect those platform workers’ working conditions”. These decisions include, in
particular, those that affect platform workers in their access to work assignments,
remuneration, occupational safety and health, working time, promotion and contractual
status, “including the restriction, suspension or termination of their account”.
   Regarding the systems at (b), platform workers must also be informed about the criteria
used to make a decision, the "weight" of each criterion as well as “the grounds for decisions
to restrict, suspend or terminate the platform worker’s account, to refuse the remuneration
for work, on the platform worker’s contractual status” and “any decision with similar
effects”. Under Article 8, platform workers will have the right to receive a written explanation


7See Aloisi A., ‘Time Is Running Out’. The Yodel Order and Its Implications for Platform Work in the EU, in Italian Labour
Law e-Journal, Issue 2, Vol. 13, 2020.

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about how these decisions were reached. They will also have the right to access a competent
"contact person" designated by the platform "to discuss and to clarify the facts,
circumstances and reasons” leading to a decision. They will also have the right to ask the
platform to review a detrimental decision.
    Article 6 also bans some of the most abusive forms of data processing, including on "any
personal data on the emotional or psychological state” of platform workers, data concerning
their health, and private conversations. It also prohibits collecting "any personal data while
the platform worker is not offering or performing platform work”. While a ban on processing
the data just mentioned is a step forward, it is unclear why the collection of those extremely
sensitive data is not outright banned – data about emotional and mental states, for instance,
can hardly be collected by chance without systems that track them specifically. To prevent
abuses, collecting these data should also be prohibited, in addition to their processing.
    Article 7 of the Directive would impose an obligation to regularly review automated
monitoring and decision-making systems, particularly concerning occupational health and
safety risks. Platforms must also not “use automated monitoring and decision-making
systems in any manner that puts undue pressure on platform workers or otherwise puts at
risk the physical and mental health of platform workers”. This is a much welcome notion, as
occupational health and safety risks have tragically materialised for platform workers on
many occasions in these years. For these risks to be mitigated effectively, however, a broad
interpretation of the word "system" is necessary, including the policies operationalised or
facilitated by managerial technologies. For instance, piece-rate payments materially pressure
workers to disregard safety rules to increase earnings in the food-delivery and logistic sectors.
Piece-rate payments of platform workers are a policy that can only function if the technology
is used to automatically monitor and track the number of tasks executed during a particular
shift; these policies, thus, arguably fall under the prohibition in Article 7.
    It is not clear, instead, why this article does not explicitly address the risk of algorithmic
discrimination, despite a burgeoning academic literature showing how this is a risk that may
well affect, among others, platform workers8 and the existence of at least one decision
adopted by a court in the European Union finding that a platform had discriminated against
its workers through the functioning of an algorithmic system.9
    Article 9 of the Directive introduces information and consultation duties vis-à-vis workers’
representatives about the introduction of and substantial changes in the use of automated
monitoring and decision-making systems. While this article does not go as far as providing
for a fully-fledged right to "negotiate the algorithm", it allows collective actors to assess
algorithmic systems before they are put into place and offer ex-ante inputs to the adoption
and modification of these systems. This is a much-needed measure since individual
transparency rights that only operate ex-post do not adequately allow to prevent the risks


8 See, also for further references, Gramano E., Kullmann M., Algorithmic discrimination, the role of GPS, and the
limited scope of EU non-discrimination law, in De Stefano V., Durri I., Charalampos S., Wouters M., A Research
Agenda for the Gig-Economy and Society, Cheltenham and Camberley and Northampton, Massachusetts,
forthcoming.
9 Aloisi A., De Stefano V., “Frankly, my rider, I don’t give a damn”, in Rivista il Mulino, 7 January 2021, available at:

https://www.rivistailmulino.it/a/frankly-my-rider-i-don-t-give-a-damn-1.

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connected to algorithmic management systems and may also be ineffective unless individual
workers receive adequate assistance when dealing with the outcomes of these systems.
Nonetheless, there are at least two significant shortcomings concerning algorithmic
management and collective rights in the current proposal of the Directive.
    The first is the exclusion of the self-employed from the application of article 9. The
Directive extends the provisions that foster transparency by providing a right to information,
explanation, and to challenge automated decision-making systems to “persons performing
platform work who do not have an employment contract or employment relationship”
(article 10). While this extension is positive, excluding persons performing platform work
outside the framework of employment relationships from the collective aspects of that
protection, namely the information and consultation duties vis-à-vis workers’
representatives, seems to be entirely insufficient for adequately tackling the challenges of
algorithmic management in platform work. Platforms widely use invasive algorithmic
management systems regardless of their workers' employment status – mere “individual”
transparency rights are not more sufficient to protect the self-employed than they are for
platform workers engaged in an employment relationship.
    Beyond article 153 of the TFEU, the proposed Directive indicates article 16(2) as its legal
basis. This article allows adopting rules “relating to the protection of individuals with regard
to the processing of personal data". There is no distinction between the self-employed and
employees in this article, and, yet, limiting the protection of self-employed platform workers
to ex-post transparency rights means confining these workers to a patent form of second-rate
protection. This limitation is all the more inexplicable as the “package” on platform work
presented by the Commission includes, beyond the proposed Directive, some draft
guidelines that unequivocally acknowledge that collective bargaining practices are ever more
concerning self-employed persons, including platform workers. Moreover, trade unions in
Europe are also progressively interested and active in addressing algorithmic management
also through collective bargaining.10 In light of these developments, excluding the self-
employed from the protection of article 9 seems to be hardly reasonable.
    A final but crucial remark about extending individual transparency protection concerning
algorithmic management systems to the self-employed regards its possible interaction with
employment status and reclassification claims. It should not be underestimated that some of
these management systems can be radically at odds with genuine forms of self-employment.
Self-employed work is incompatible with some of the intrusive and detailed monitoring of
the work performance enabled by technology. A business’s reliance on constant tracking of


10See, for instance, the presentations at the March 2022 Collective bargaining and algorithmic management conference
available at: https://www.etui.org/events/collective-bargaining-and-algorithmic-management. Notably, in
June 2022, the European social partners expressly referred to challenges that digital monitoring presents to
workers’ privacy in the context of remote work and affirmed: “monitoring and surveillance tools should only
be used where necessary and proportionate and the workers’ right to privacy should be ensured. […] Due to
the accelerated rate of adoption of workplace technologies which have monitoring and surveillance capabilities,
social partners need to create the space for exchanging views on these trends and the relevance this has for
social partners and collective bargaining at all appropriate levels across Europe”. See
https://www.businesseurope.eu/sites/buseur/files/media/reports_and_studies/2022-06-
28_european_social_dialogue_programme_22-24_0.pdf

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workers’ movements, strict monitoring of the work pace, and tech-enabled control of
messaging, browsing activity and use of computers contrasts with a worker’s self-employed
status, especially when automated systems are used to combine information deduced from
these features.11
    Even if these systems complied with Chapter III of the Directive, if they were put in place
to monitor self-employed platform workers, they may ground the reclassification of the
working relationship into one of employment. It would be opportune to clarify better that
the fact that a management system is allowable under Chapter III does not prevent that the
use of this system in relation to self-employed platform workers could lead to the
reclassification of those persons under Chapter II of the Directive. This seems implicit in the
current wording of the "primacy of facts" principle in Article 3, which specifies that, among
the facts that relate to the "actual performance of work", the “use of algorithms in the
organisation of platform work” must be taken into account. Nonetheless, it may be
preferable to expressly provide that some forms of algorithmic management of workers
classified as self-employed can lead to reclassification even if compliant with Chapter III.
    A second major shortcoming of the current proposal is its “techno-deterministic”
approach to algorithmic monitoring and decision-making. In other words, the Directive
accepts that these managerial systems and practices should be allowed in principle as if this
was a natural consequence of the fact that these systems are available and these practices
made possible by recent technological developments. It could be argued, instead, that
algorithmic management should not be assumed as a "given". Its introduction should be –
at the very least – a matter of negotiation with workers’ representatives, sometimes also
subject to administrative authorisation. This has been the approach taken in the past by some
European national legislation concerning the use of technology, such as cameras, that may
allow monitoring work performance.12 It seems unreasonable that algorithmic management
– which relies on technologies that could be much more invasive than those more severely
scrutinised in the past – should be held to lower regulatory standards.


4. The proposed Directive, more favourable provisions, and the potentially
deregulating effects of the EU “Artificial Intelligence Act.

   The techno-deterministic approach of Chapter III could be mitigated by Article 20 of the
Directive, which allows the Member States to apply or introduce more favourable regulations
for workers. Nonetheless, the risk of a potential clash of these domestic regulations with
other EU instruments should not be neglected. In particular, the current proposal for a



11 A similar issue exists concerning the EU “Artificial Intelligence Act” referred to below. See De Stefano V.,
Wouters M., AI and digital tools in workplace management and evaluation. An assessment of the EU legal framework,
STUDY Panel for the Future of Science and Technology EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service,
Scientific Foresight Unit (STOA), PE 729.516 – May 2022, 55.
12 See, for instance, Aloisi, A. Gramano E., Artificial Intelligence Is Watching You at Work: Digital Surveillance, Employee

Monitoring, and Regulatory Issues in the EU Context, in Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal, Vol. 41, 2019, 95.

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Regulation on artificial intelligence (the so-called Artificial Intelligence Act)13 could be a
material obstacle to applying or introducing more robust protective standards than the ones
allowed by this Regulation (or the ones exactly corresponding to the content of the
Directive). The legal basis of the Artificial Intelligence Act, and its entire conceptualisation,
go in the direction of liberalising the production and marketing of AI systems in the EU,
provided that these systems comply with the standards of the Act. As extensively discussed
elsewhere,14 these standards are utterly inadequate to the algorithmic management systems
that are increasingly common in today's world of work since, among other things, they
completely ignore the role of the social partners in regulating the introduction of
technological tools at work.
    Moreover, the liberalisation thrust (and legal basis) underpinning this initiative risks
overcoming any domestic regulation, including work-related ones, that provides for higher
protection standards. If that was the case, the Artificial Intelligence Act would act as a
"ceiling" rather than a "floor" of protection, something that would not be unheard of in the
field of EU employment and labour legislation if one thinks, for instance, to how provisions
with a "liberalising" legal basis were interpreted by the Court of Justice of the EU in a
disruptive way in the “Laval Quartet”.
    Despite all its shortcomings, the Directive on platform work already includes protective
standards that are much more specific and adequate than those set out by the Artificial
Intelligence Act. It also expressly allows the application and introduction of more vigorous
levels of protection by the Member States. It seems reasonable to argue that both the
Directive's and the domestic provisions explicitly sanctioned by article 20 of the Directive
should be interpreted as a lex specialis to the Artificial Intelligence Act, being the Directive
based on a more specific legal basis addressing labour and social matters particularly.
Construing those provisions in this way would override the possible disruptive interpretation
of the Act within the scope of application of the Directive. A contrary interpretation based
on the Artificial Intelligence Act would arguably abrogate article 20 implicitly, something that
would seem impossible to justify for instruments that are adopted by the same legislative
bodies in the same period.
    These latter considerations make all the more urgent to consider the scope of the
provisions of algorithmic management in Chapter III of the Directive. In its proposed
formulation, the Directive would only cover persons performing platform work, leaving
outside the scope of its protection all the workers who are not engaged by platforms.
Algorithmic management systems, which pose enormous challenges to national and EU
labour protection systems, have long spread beyond platform work.15 This development,
coupled with the Artificial Intelligence Act's potential liberalising effects, represents a
significant threat to the working conditions and labour rights of workers in the EU.


13 Proposal For a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council Laying Down Harmonised Rules
On Artificial Intelligence (Artificial Intelligence Act) And Amending Certain Union Legislative Acts {SEC2021)
167 final} - {SWD(2021) 84 final} - {SWD(2021) 85 final}.
14 De Stefano V., Wouters M., nt. (9).
15 Aloisi A., De Stefano V., Your Boss Is an Algorithm. Artificial Intelligence, Platform Work and Labour, Hart

Publishing, Oxford, 2022.

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   Therefore, it seems all the more urgent to extend the protection of Chapter III (besides
strengthening this protection, as argued above) beyond platform work. The draft report
mentioned above has presented potential amendments of the EU Parliament that would
effectively go in this direction. These amendments would be entirely compatible with the
legal basis and the impact assessment of the proposed Directive. Although this is not the
place to discuss how potentially hard would be to adopt these amendments at the political
level, it is essential to say here, in concluding these remarks, that few legislative measures in
the field of EU labour and employment law seem as vital and legally reasonable as affording
adequate protection about the introduction and operation of algorithmic management
systems to all workers in the EU, regardless of their employment status and sector.
   The proposed Directive is a crucial first step towards a sounder human-centric approach
to introducing and applying technology at work, particularly compared to the free-rain
practices that platforms and tech companies have benefitted from in recent years.
Strengthening and extending its protection, nonetheless, is essential to ensure that its
objectives are pursued effectively.




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https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1561-8048/15233                                                             10
 Valerio De Stefano                                                      Italian Labour Law e-Journal
                                                                                 Issue 1 Vol. 15 (2022)
                                                                                       Section: Theme




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Copyright © 2022 Valerio De Stefano. This article is released under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License




https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1561-8048/15233                                                         11
