HUMANS AS A SERVICE – WORK IN THE ‘GIG’ ECONOMY

Jeremias Prassl, Associate Professor in Law, Magdalen College, University of Oxford

Professor Jeremias Prassl’s talk addressed the rise of the ‘Sharing’, ‘Gig’ or ‘Uber’ Economy which is disrupting business models across the globe. The completion of ‘tasks’, ‘gigs’ or ‘rides’ in the (digital) crowd fundamentally challenges our understanding of work in modern labour markets. Litigation between workers, customers, and platforms is on the rise in the US and Europe, with many fundamental questions raised by crowdwork still lacking authoritative answers. Is this the future of work? What are the benefits and challenges of working in the crowd? And is the crowdsourcing economy really fundamentally different from existing work arrangements and should it therefore fall outside the scope of employment law, as many providers claim? What is crowdwork? What are the advantages and problems resulting from this new phenomenon? How should the law respond in order to regulate on-demand economy work?

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