10.6092/issn.1561-8048/18413
This article examines how trade unions and self-organised worker groups have deployed digital organising tools to collectivise gig work, focusing on rideshare and food delivery platforms. It demonstrates the successful actions of worker representatives to improve the working conditions and legal position of platform-based rideshare and food delivery workers in several countries, through: coordinated mobilisation to disrupt the operations of platforms and build campaigns for increased regulation of platform work; strategic litigation to establish useful legal precedents, attract public attention and build solidarity among like-minded workers; and negotiating collective agreements on behalf of gig workers. While deficiencies are identified in the collective bargaining activities of some unions, the article concludes that unions and grass-roots worker groups have played a critical role in contesting the contracting model which lies at the core of gig worker exploitation – and helping them to martial the power obtained through resistance and collective action.
application/pdf
1561-8048
18413
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Anthony Forsyth
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Italian Labour Law e-Journal
Misclassification
The Digital Resistance: Contesting the Power of Gig Economy Platforms through Collective Worker Action
Text.Serial.Journal
https://illej.unibo.it/
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Miscellaneous
2023-12-14
2023-11-07
2023-12-14
2023-12-14
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ILLeJ
Anthony Forsyth
2023/12/14
10.6092/issn.1561-8048/18413
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RMIT University
1561-8048
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Misclassification
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The Digital Resistance: Contesting the Power of Gig Economy Platforms through Collective Worker Action
https://illej.unibo.it/article/download/18413/17069
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The Digital Resistance: Contesting the Power of Gig Economy                       Italian Labour Law e-Journal
Platforms through Collective Worker Action.                                              Issue 2, Vol. 16 (2023)
Anthony Forsyth                                                                                ISSN 1561-8048
anthony.forsyth@rmit.edu.au                                     https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1561-8048/18413




    The Digital Resistance: Contesting the Power of Gig
      Economy Platforms through Collective Worker
                          Action.
                                           Anthony Forsyth*

1. Preliminary remarks. 2. Mobilizing gig workers for collective action and political
campaigns. 3. Union-sponsored litigation to contest misclassification of gig workers. 4.
Collective bargaining (and its proxies) for platform workers. 5. Conclusion and final remarks.


                                                    Abstract

    This article examines how trade unions and self-organised worker groups have deployed digital
    organising tools to collectivise gig work, focusing on rideshare and food delivery platforms. It
    demonstrates the successful actions of worker representatives to improve the working conditions
    and legal position of platform-based rideshare and food delivery workers in several countries,
    through: coordinated mobilisation to disrupt the operations of platforms and build campaigns
    for increased regulation of platform work; strategic litigation to establish useful legal precedents,
    attract public attention and build solidarity among like-minded workers; and negotiating
    collective agreements on behalf of gig workers. While deficiencies are identified in the collective
    bargaining activities of some unions, the article concludes that unions and grass-roots worker
    groups have played a critical role in contesting the contracting model which lies at the core of gig
    worker exploitation – and helping them to martial the power obtained through resistance and
    collective action.

    Keywords: Gig economy; Platform work; Contracting model; Self-employed; Misclassification;
    Worker mobilization; Digital organizing; Strategic litigation; Collective bargaining; Trade unions.




1. Preliminary remarks.

   The growth of the gig or platform economy in many parts of the world over the last
decade or more has presented many challenges for workers and those who represent them.
This intervention considers how trade unions and self-organised worker groups have
deployed digital organising tools to collectivise gig work, and begun to counter the gaps in


* Distinguished Professor, Graduate School of Business and Law, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.
Paper presented at the International Conference on “Law, Technology and Labour”, University of Bologna
(Residential Center of Bertinoro), 30 June-1 July 2022. This essay has been submitted to a double-blind peer
review.
    Anthony Forsyth                                                                        Italian Labour Law e-Journal
                                                                                                  Issue 2, Vol. 16 (2023)
                                                                                                  Section: Miscellaneous




employment regulation exposed by the contracting model adopted by many platforms. That
model involves the imposition of independent contractor or self-employed status upon
workers who perform labour via digital platforms, with no negotiation, leaving the workers
outside the protection of labour law frameworks. However, many researchers and
commentators have highlighted the deception inherent in what is really a misclassification
business model:1 in reality, many gig workers are subject to the extensive level of control that
is typical of employment.2 In my recent book, I described the platforms’ audacity in bypassing
the labour laws of many countries around the world – by selling (to investors, policy-makers,
and workers) “a narrative of glamorised, freelance-style work”.3 They have “latched onto
technology and innovation and the (supposed) attraction of flexibility and entrepreneurship
to the putative self-employed worker, as ruses for exploitation”.4 This is what I called “the
mirage of liberating work in the gig economy”.5 This article will not reconsider the
widespread evidence of underpayment of gig workers, the pronounced safety risks they face,
their exposure to customers’ abuse, sexual harassment and many other forms of exploitation,
nor the ability of platforms to arbitrarily terminate the services of their workers instantly
through “deactivation”.6 Rather, as noted above, it will consider the collective dimensions of
platform work and the digital resistance to this new form of exploitation mounted by unions
and workers themselves.7 The discussion focuses on two particular forms of task-based gig
work: services provided through rideshare and food delivery platforms.8


2. Mobilizing gig workers for collective action and political campaigns.

    Unions like the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), and self-organized
Italian worker groups such as Deliveroo Strike Raiders, Deliverance Milano and Riders
Union Bologna,9 have been instrumental in mobilising food delivery platform workers to
take direct action in protest against their precarity. A striking feature of this mobilisation has
been the ability of worker representatives to turn the technology used by platforms like
Deliveroo, Foodora and Uber Eats as instruments of surveillance, performance management

1 National Employment Law Project, Rights at Risk: Gig Companies’ Campaign to Upend Employment as We Know It,
25 March 2019, 2; International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW) Network, Taken for a Ride: Litigating the
Digital Platform Model, ILAW Issue Brief, March 2021, 12-13.
2 See for example Aloisi A., De Stefano V., Your Boss Is an Algorithm: Artificial Intelligence, Platform Work and Labour,

Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2022, 94.
3 Forsyth A., The Future of Unions and Worker Representation: The Digital Picket Line, Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2022,

149.
4 Ibidem., 149.
5 Ibidem., 148.
6 See for example Mawhinney S., Reinhard J., Lefebvre M., Tough Gig: Worker Perspectives on the Gig Economy, The

McKell Institute Queensland, April 2023.
7 See further Bessa I., Joyce S., Neumann D., Stuart M., Trappmann V. and Umney C., A Global Analysis of

Worker Protest in Digital Labour Platforms, ILO Working Paper 70, Geneva, June 2022.
8 Although it should be noted that platforms continue to emerge in a range of economic sectors, such as the

Australian market for the provision of in-home aged care and disability care: see for example Macdonald F.,
Individualising Risk: Paid Care Work in the New Gig Economy, Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore, 2021.
9 Cini L., Tassinari A., Maccarrone V., With or Without U(unions): Understanding the Diversity of Gig Workers’

Organizing Practices in Italy and the UK, in European Journal of Industrial Relations, 28, 3, 2021.

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     Anthony Forsyth                                                                           Italian Labour Law e-Journal
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                                                                                                      Section: Miscellaneous




and discipline through workers’ smartphones, into an organising tool.10 Many of these worker
collectives have evolved from simple Facebook and WhatsApp groups, where riders and
drivers shared concerns about their working conditions. Typical of this was the protest
movement against Deliveroo’s alteration of rider payments in 2016, which IWGB helped
transform into a long-running campaign to improve pay and conditions across food delivery
platforms in the UK.11 At Deliveroo, IWGB assisted workers to engage in snap “log-off”
strikes in many British cities,12 commencing with a protest at the company’s London head
office where the CEO insisted on individual discussions with employees, but: “For the first
time … [he was] face-to-face with organized couriers. … The thousands of dots on the map,
spread all over London, [were actually] … real people with real power”.13 In addition to this
kind of mobilisation in the food delivery sector, unions and rideshare driver groups globally
have coordinated mass protests and log-offs in recent years – using “digital picket lines” to
gain support from other drivers, consumers and the wider community.14
    Union mobilisation of rideshare and food delivery workers has also been focused on
political campaigns seeking improved regulation to counter the effects of the contracting
model of the platforms. Australia’s Transport Workers Union (TWU) is an exemplar of this
approach, through its #Rights4Riders campaign in conjunction with the Victorian Young
Workers Centre.15 The TWU has lobbied state governments in Australia for changes to
workplace safety regulation following a series of food delivery rider deaths since 2020.16 This
led to a commitment from the new state government in New South Wales to ensure gig
workers have access to workers’ compensation, safety standards and other rights enjoyed by
employees.17 Reform at the federal level is also imminent, in large part due to the TWU’s
persistent advocacy and shaping of legislation which is currently before the Australian
Parliament. The Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023 proposes a
regulatory scheme that would enable “employee-like” workers engaged by digital labour
platforms and their representatives to apply to the Fair Work Commission for:
    • a minimum standards order setting terms and conditions for the engagement of
       workers relating to matters including payment, working time, insurance, consultation
       and representation (but not overtime rates, rostering, work health and safety or issues
       of a primarily commercial nature);

10 See for example Vandaele K., Will Trade Unions Survive in the Platform Economy? Emerging Patterns of Platform
Workers’ Collective Voice and Representation in Europe, European Trade Union Institute, Working Paper 2018.05,
15-16; Maffie D., The Role of Digital Communities in Organizing Gig Workers, in Industrial Relations, 59, 2021, 123;
Hadwiger F., Realizing the Opportunities of the Platform Economy through Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining,
ILO Working Paper 80, Geneve, September 2022, 35-39.
11 Cant C., Riding for Deliveroo: Resistance in the New Gig Economy, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2019, 107-121.
12 See for example Shanks P., Resisting exploitation and building power: the Deliveroo workers fighting back, in Bright Green,

12 February 2019.
13 See Cant C., nt. (11), 9.
14 See for example Campbell A.F., The worldwide Uber strike is a key test for the gig economy, in Vox, 8 May 2019.
15 See Forsyth A., nt. (3), 152-153.
16 Ibidem., 153-154; see also TWU, Transport reform undeniably urgent as 13th food delivery rider killed: TWU, 13 August

2023, available at: https://www.twu.com.au/press/transport-reform-undeniably-urgent-as-13th-food-
delivery-rider-killed-twu/.
17 TWU, Reform in the gig economy, 12 October 2022, https://twunsw.org.au/news/reform-in-the-gig-economy/;

Costin L., NSW premier commits to “historic” gig worker equality, in Central Western Daily, 16 May 2023.

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                                                                                                   Section: Miscellaneous




   • remedies to address the unfair deactivation of workers by a platform, including
      reactivation and compensation;
   • the registration of collective agreements negotiated by consent between trade unions
      and digital labour platform operators.
   The Australian Government has chosen an approach to regulating platform work which
accepts the independent contractor status of workers (in most instances), but provides them
with minimum rights and standards to address situations where workers have low bargaining
power, low authority over their work or comparatively low pay.18 It is an innovative reform,
which the TWU takes credit for in the following terms:

    «The reform outlined today would give the Fair Work Commission the capacity to take a holistic view of
gig work, how it is performed, and examine how much control or autonomy a gig worker really has, before
setting appropriate standards to ensure they can work safely and are not exploited.
    This is a ground-breaking system that would provide genuine flexibility for gig workers for the first time
ever. The provision of rights like minimum pay, insurance and protection against unfair deactivation would
ease the deadly pressure on transport gig workers to work longer, faster and at certain times of night just to
make ends meet.
    This legislation was fought for by transport gig workers, and in memory of those that have been tragically
lost. We urge Federal Parliament to urgently pass this reform to save lives on our roads».19


3. Union-sponsored litigation to contest misclassification of gig workers.

   Unions have led legal challenges to the platforms’ contracting model, supporting or
bringing cases before the courts in many countries aimed at overturning the denial of
employment rights to gig workers.20 In these cases, unions are not only seeking to establish
helpful legal precedents. Rather, “strategic litigation” of this kind “places emphasis on the
whole process of litigation: including publicity prior to, during and following, a legal case”.21
In Australia, the TWU has mounted several cases under unfair dismissal legislation,
challenging the arbitrary deactivation of rideshare and food delivery workers from apps
operated by the platforms. This has included successful cases against Foodora 22 and




18 Australian Parliament – The House of the Representatives, Speech of the Hon. Tony Burke MP - Minister
for Employment and Workplace Relations, Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023: Second
Reading Speech, 4 September 2023.
19 TWU, TWU applauds world-first legislation on gig worker rights, 31 August 2023, available at:

https://www.twu.com.au/press/twu-applauds-world-first-legislation-on-gig-worker-rights/.
20 See International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW), nt. (1); ILAW, Taken for a Ride 2: Accelerating towards

Justice, ILAW Issue Brief, December 2022.
21 Adams Z., Legal Mobilisations, Trade Unions and Radical Social Change: A Case Study of the IWGB, in Industrial Law

Journal, 52, 3, 2023. See also Kirk E., The Worker and the Law Revisited: Conceptualizing Legal Participation, Mobilization
and Consciousness at Work, in International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations, 38, 2022, 157.
22 Klooger v Foodora Australia Pty Ltd (2018) 283 IR 168.



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                                                                                                Section: Miscellaneous




Deliveroo,23 although the latter decision was overturned on appeal;24 and another case
brought on behalf of a sacked Uber Eats driver, who obtained more than A$400,000 in
settlement of an appeal in the Federal Court of Australia against a lower tribunal ruling that
she was not an employee.25
    IWGB played a role along with GMB Union and, ultimately, the App Drivers and
Couriers Union in a successful test case which resulted in the UK Supreme Court
determining that Uber drivers are “workers” for purposes of UK laws regulating the
minimum wage and working time.26 In this decision, the UK’s highest court affirmed the
outcome reached at three lower levels of the judicial system, concluding that Uber effectively
dictated the contractual terms entered into by its drivers; precluded real choice over when
and where drivers work by monitoring their acceptance or rejection of drive requests; and
engaged in “a classic form of subordination” through its algorithms including passenger
rating systems.27 IWGB has also prosecuted litigation seeking to establish the right to engage
in collective bargaining with Deliveroo on behalf of food delivery riders.28 Although
unsuccessful to date,29 IWGB’s pursuit of this case illustrates (as Adams explains) how the
union views “rights-claiming, and legal challenges … [not] as ends in themselves” but instead
as avenues to fulfil broader objectives including:

    «… attempts to improve the bargaining position of the union and its members when it comes to campaigns
for changes in public policy, and/or employer behaviour; to establish precedents that can provide leverage when
it comes to securing concessions from employers; and raising awareness, building solidarity between groups,
and providing a common narrative through which to articulate the demands and suffering of a range of groups,
in order to facilitate the formation of a common plan of action».30




23 Franco v Deliveroo Australia Pty Ltd (2021) 305 IR 255.
24 Deliveroo Australia Pty Ltd v Franco (2022) 317 IR 253. This different outcome arose from the appeal tribunal’s
application of two High Court of Australia decisions which required (in the determination of whether a worker
is an employee or an independent contractor) a focus on the rights and duties in any written contract entered
into by the parties – rather than the reality of the work relationship: Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and
Energy Union v Personnel Contracting Pty Ltd (2022) 96 ALJR 89; ZG Operations Australia Pty Ltd v Jamsek (2022) 96
ALJR 144. See also Riley Munton J., Employment Contracts in the Australian High Court, in Italian Labour Law e-
Journal, 15, 2022, 173; and Nawaz v Rasier Pacific Pty Ltd T/A Uber B.V. (2022) 317 IR 134.
25 Gupta v Portier Pacific Pty Ltd; Uber Australia Pty Ltd T/A Uber Eats (2020) 296 IR 246; Marin-Guzman D.,

Uber paid “incredible” amount to avoid landmark judgment, in Australian Financial Review, 10 June 2021.
26 Uber BV and others (Appellants) v Aslan and others (RespondentsI (2021) UKSC 5.
27 Ibidem.
28 See Bertolini A., Dukes R., Trade Unions and Platform Workers in the UK: Worker Representation in the Shadow of the

Law, in Industrial Law Journal, 50, 4, 2021, 662 and 679.
29 The UK Court of Appeal ruled that the riders are not “workers” for purposes of UK collective baraining

law, in part because they are able to substitute other riders to perform deliveries: The Independent Workers Union
of Great Britain v The Central Arbitration Committee and Roofoods Limited T/A Deliveroo (2021) EWCA Civ 952. That
decision has been appealed by IWGB: Webber A., Supreme Court hears Deliveroo collective bargaining case, in Personnel
Today, 25 April 2023.
30 See Adams, nt. (21), 21.



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4. Collective bargaining (and its proxies) for platform workers.

   In many countries, unions and other worker representatives face the dual constraints on
collective bargaining for gig workers imposed by labour and competition (or antitrust) laws:
labour law generally restricts access to collective bargaining to employees (or an intermediate
category of workers in jurisdictions like the UK), while the self-employed are treated as
independent businesses which are precluded from bargaining together by competition law.31
In several European nations, unions have successfully negotiated collective agreements for
platform workers designated as employees.32 As for the vast majority of gig workers
putatively engaged as independent contractors,33 the TWU has bypassed Australian
competition law restrictions by engaging in informal collective bargaining with platforms
including DoorDash, Uber/Uber Eats and Menulog. These unregistered agreements
generally set out the parties’ commitment to high-level principles including appropriate work
rights and entitlements for the flexible nature of this form of work, while also recognising
the legitimate representative role of the union.34 In the UK, GMB Union reached a
recognition agreement with Deliveroo in May 2022, under which (according to GMB) riders
would “be covered by a collective agreement that gives them a voice, including pay talks,
guaranteed earnings, and representation in times of difficulty”.35 However the GMB-
Deliveroo deal raised concerns not only for preserving the self-employed status of the
platform’s food delivery workers – but also for locking out a rival union, IWGB,36 which had
pursued long-running litigation trying to establish statutory recognition rights for collective
bargaining with Deliveroo.37
   Even stronger unease was expressed by mainstream unions in Italy about the agreement
made in September 2020 by the right-wing Unione Generale del Lavoro (UGL) and
Assodelivery (a lobbying organization representing Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Glovo and Just
Eat). Although giving delivery riders some minimum rights regarding pay, safety, insurance
and training, the agreement preserved the workers’ self-employed status and the piece rate
basis of their remuneration while also circumventing a 2019 law which would have provided
them with more favourable minimum standards.38 One of the major trade union


31 See for example Aloisi A., De Stefano V., nt. (2), 155-156; Hadwiger F., nt. (10), 64; Kocher E., Digital Work
Platforms at the Interface of Labour Law: Regulating Market Organisers, Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2022, 210-216.
32 Hadwiger F., nt. (10), 52-54. See also Lamannis M., Collective Bargaining in the Platform Economy: A Mapping

Exercise of Existing Initiatives, Report 2023.02, European Trade Union Institute, Brussels, 2023.
33 See Lamannis M., nt. (32).
34 DoorDash, Transport Workers’ Union of Australia, Statement of Principles to Ensure Safety and Fairness for Workers

in the On-Demand Economy, 9 May 2022; Uber, Transport Workers’ Union of Australia, Statement of Principles and
Future Commitments for Workers in the On-Demand Economy, 28 June 2022; Menulog, Transport Workers’ Union of
Australia, Charter of Principles and Ongoing Commitments to Ensure Safety and Fairness for On-Demand Delivery Couriers,
27 March 2023.
35 Jones A., Union hails “historic” recognition deal with food delivery giant Deliveroo, in The Independent, 12 May 2022.
36 McGurdy C., Deliveroo-GMB deal: a closer look, in The Social Review, 7 August 2022, available at

https://www.thesocialreview.co.uk/2022/08/07/deliveroo-gmb-deal-a-closer-look/.
37 As discussed in section 3 of this article.
38   Eurofound, Collective agreement between AssoDelivery and UGL, 23 July 2021, available at
https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/platformeconomydb/collective-agreement-between-assodelivery-and-ugl-
103352.

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confederations, Confederazione Generale Italiana di Lavoro (CGIL), successfully challenged
Deliveroo’s application of the UGL-Assodelivery agreement to its riders. In this case, the
Bologna Labour Court ruled that Deliveroo’s actions constituted anti-union behaviour in
breach of Article 28 of the Italian Workers’ Statute 1970; and that the agreement itself was
invalid as it was not negotiated with the most representative workers’ organization.39 The
agreement was also struck down by the Labour Court of Florence in another proceeding
initiated by CGIL, on the grounds that UGL had conducted the negotiations with
Assodelivery secretly, without informing the riders whose work would be subject to the
agreement and while the major union confederations were attempting to negotiate a national
collective agreement for the sector.40


5. Conclusion and final remarks.

    Trade unions and self-organised worker groups face formidable barriers in their efforts
to collectivise gig work, including the disparate and atomised nature of the work (and
workers) and the very real threat of retribution against union activists.41 Most platforms are
openly hostile to trade unions42 and oppose unionisation drives almost as aggressively as they
campaign against any attempt to regulate gig work.43 Yet despite these obstacles, this article
has shown that worker representatives have been able to successfully intervene to improve
the working conditions and legal position of platform-based rideshare and food delivery
workers in several countries. This has been achieved through three inter-connected
approaches: coordinated mobilisation aimed at directly disrupting the operations of
platforms and building campaigns for increased regulation of platform work; strategic
litigation to establish useful legal precedents, attract public attention and build solidarity
among like-minded workers; and negotiating collective agreements on behalf of gig workers.
The article identified deficiencies in the approach of some trade unions in this last area. There
is no doubting the importance of platform workers, and others who are self-employed yet
perform predominantly personal work, having the same access to the benefits of collective
bargaining as employees.44 However, the examples considered in section 4 of the article

39 Court of Bologna, 30 June 2021; European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), Italian court rules in favour of
digital platform workers, 26 October 2023, available at https://etuclex.etuc.org/italian-court-rules-favour-digital-
platform-workers.
40 Labour Tribunal of Florence, ruling No. 781/2021. On an earlier contrary ruling by the Labour Tribunal of

Florence, see Recchia G., Not So Easy, Riders: The Struggle for the Collective Protection of Gig-Economy Workers, in Italian
Labour Law e-Journal, 14, 1, 2021, 195.
41 See Aloisi A., De Stefano V., nt. (2), 157; Cini L., Tassinari A., Maccarrone V., nt. (9), 204-205.
42 Prassl J., Collective Voice in the Platform Economy: Challenges, Opportunities, Solutions, Report to the European Trade

Union Confederation, Brussels, September 2018, 14.
43 See for example Marin-Guzman D., Uber warns Labor of “catastrophic” job losses from gig economy reforms, in Australian

Financial Review, 1 June 2023; Beazley J., Uber warning that food delivery prices could spike 85% shows gig workers are
underpaid, experts say, in The Guardian, 17 October 2023, referring to the current proposals to regulate gig work
in Australia (discussed in section 2 of this article).
44 See for example Countouris M., De Stefano V., The Labour Law Framework: Self-Employed and Their Right to

Bargain Collectively, in Waas B., Hießl C. (eds), Collective Bagaining for Self-Employed Workers in Europe: Approaches to
Reconcile Competition Law and Labour Rights, Wolters Kluwer, Alphen aan den Rijn, 2021, 3; Razzolini O., Self-

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 Anthony Forsyth                                                                         Italian Labour Law e-Journal
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                                                                                                Section: Miscellaneous




illustrate the imperative of trade unions effectively representing the interests of gig workers
rather than prioritising organisational goals such as recruitment of new members. As I put it
in my book, unions should never be complicit in “union-busting” and: “in negotiat[ing]
collective agreements on behalf of gig workers … unions must ensure their primary objective
is the betterment of the workers they represent, rather than simply ousting another union at
the behest of a platform”.45 In summary, it can be concluded that unions and grass-roots
worker groups have played a critical role in contesting the contracting model which lies at
the core of gig worker exploitation, overcoming this displacement of employment
protections for many workers – and giving them, for the first time, a sense of the power that
can be realised through resistance and collective action.46




                                                    Bibliography

Adams Z., Legal Mobilisations, Trade Unions and Radical Social Change: A Case Study of the IWGB,
in Industrial Law Journal, 52, 3, 2023;
Aloisi A., De Stefano V., Your Boss Is an Algorithm: Artificial Intelligence, Platform Work and
Labour, Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2022;
Beazley J., Uber warning that food delivery prices could spike 85% shows gig workers are underpaid, experts
say, in The Guardian, 17 October 2023;
Bertolini A., Dukes R., Trade Unions and Platform Workers in the UK: Worker Representation in the
Shadow of the Law, in Industrial Law Journal, 50, 4, 2021;
Bessa I., Joyce S., Neumann D., Stuart M., Trappmann V. and Umney C., A Global Analysis
of Worker Protest in Digital Labour Platforms, ILO Working Paper 70, Geneva, June 2022;
Campbell A.F., The worldwide Uber strike is a key test for the gig economy, in Vox, 8 May 2019;
Cant C., Riding for Deliveroo: Resistance in the New Gig Economy, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2019;
Cini L., Tassinari A., Maccarrone V., With or Without U(unions): Understanding the Diversity of
Gig Workers’ Organizing Practices in Italy and the UK, in European Journal of Industrial Relations, 28,
3, 2021;
Costin L., NSW premier commits to “historic” gig worker equality, in Central Western Daily, 16 May
2023;
Countouris M., De Stefano V., The Labour Law Framework: Self-Employed and Their Right to
Bargain Collectively, in Waas B., Hießl C. (eds), Collective Bagaining for Self-Employed Workers in
Europe: Approaches to Reconcile Competition Law and Labour Rights, Wolters Kluwer, Alphen aan
den Rijn, 2021;

Employed Workers and Collective Action: A Necessary Response to Increasing Income Inequality, in Comparative Labor Law
and Policy Journal, 42, 2021, 293; Gyulavári T., Kártyás G., Why Collective Bargaining is a “Must” for Platform Workers
and How to Achieve It, in Boto J., Brameshuber E. (eds), Collective Bargaining and the Gig Economy: A Traditional Tool
for New Business Models, Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2022, 99.
45 See Cini L., Tassinari A., Maccarrone V., nt. (9), 205.
46 See further Maffie D., Gough M., Bargaining Against the Machine: A Theory of Bargaining Power in the Gig Economy,

in Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations, 27, 2023, 83; Schmalz S., Basauldo V., Serrano M., Vandaele K.,
Webster E., Varieties of Platform Unionism: A View from the Global South on Workers’ Power in the Digital Economy, in
Work in the Global Economy, 2023.

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1561-8048/18413                                                                         56
 Anthony Forsyth                                                               Italian Labour Law e-Journal
                                                                                      Issue 2, Vol. 16 (2023)
                                                                                      Section: Miscellaneous




DoorDash, Transport Workers’ Union of Australia, Statement of Principles to Ensure Safety and
Fairness for Workers in the On-Demand Economy, 9 May 2022;
Eurofound, Collective agreement between AssoDelivery and UGL, 23 July 2021;
European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), Italian court rules in favour of digital platform
workers, 26 October 2023;
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 Anthony Forsyth                                                                Italian Labour Law e-Journal
                                                                                       Issue 2, Vol. 16 (2023)
                                                                                       Section: Miscellaneous




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Copyright © 2023 Anthony Forsyth. This article is released under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License




https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1561-8048/18413                                                                58
