零工經濟中的勞動關係

Employment Relations in the Gig Economy

過去幾年間出現各種多元的就業型態，和科技進步發展有很大的關聯性，對於其中幾種就業型態，經濟學者稱之為「零工經濟」，本篇文章將專注於探討自由工作者及獨立承包人，此類勞動者通常在被稱為「平台經濟」的環境下進行工作，而這種平台工作興起後所浮現的核心問題是，從事此類工作的勞動者是否屬於社會保障的範疇。換言之，受僱者或勞工的法律定義是獲得社會保障的原因，由於平台工作偏離了標準的就業型態，也引發了關於從事這種平台工作的工作者在何種程度上可以獲得社會保障的重要問題。本文提出了幾種可能的管理方法和勞動市場政策作為解決方案，例如將此類平台工作者歸類為勞工，創建一個可推翻的勞工身分推定；或是在勞動法中給予平台工作者適當的保護，創造一個介於傳統勞工與獨立承包人間的中間類別；另一種能協助解決問題並間接做出貢獻的是勞動市場政策，一個成功的勞動市場政策能夠降低失業率，失業率越低，勞動者權益就有更大的協商空間。

The past years have produced various forms of employment. The technological change plays an important role in connection with these specific forms of employment. For economists for several of these forms of employment meanwhile the expression“ gig economy” is common.In this contribution concentrate on freelancers, independent contractors which are doing their work under circumstances, which quite often are called“ platform-economy”. A central question raised by the emergence of platform work is whether the individual performing such work falls within the scope of social protections. In other words, the legal definition of employee or dependent worker forms a gateway to social protection. Insofar as platform work departs from a standard model of employment, its emergence raises important questions about the extent to which social protections are accessible to those engaged in it. To avoid massive problems in our society, it is necessary to create fair working conditions for the persons working in the new forms of work in general and the platform work in particular. This paper proposes several possible regulatory approaches and labour market policy as solutions, such as classifying platform workers as employees, creating a rebuttable presumption of the status as employee, giving platform workers an adequate protection by labour law is the creation of an intermediate category situated between the classical employee and the independent contractor. Another instrument to make a contribution in solving the problems debated here is the labour market policy. A successful economic policy, particularly labour market policy leads to a lower unemployment rate. And the lower the unemployment rate the better is the bargaining position of the worker.