The changing nature of employment relationships and its impact on maintaining a living wage, social security systems and labour law

By rapporteur Kathleen Walker Shaw

This exploratory opinion combines two requests, one from the Dutch presidency in December 2015 for an opinion on the changing nature of employment relationships and its impact on maintaining a living wage, the other in March 2016 from the Slovak Republic Government who will take over the Presidency in July 2016 and wished us to provide an exploratory opinion for the EPSCO Council 14/15 July 2016 on the impact of technological developments on the social security system and labour law. The opinion covers a wide range of important issues in relation to developing trends in the labour market, and the benefits and challenges they create. Some issues raised would merit further consideration by the EESC in separate opinions.

The world of work is changing rapidly, and in the opinion, the EESC has developed its focus on new forms of employment relationships and contracts such as zero hours contracts and other on-demand work forms as well as on-line platforms, crowdsourcing, and other related forms of work generated with the development of digitalization. The opinion offers an overview of these key trends and an assessment of its impact on living wages, on social security systems, on tax systems, on achieving a work/life balance and security of income, on health and safety, employment rights and status, and on access to training and upskilling of the workforce for the challenges of the changing world of work. The opinion recognises the need to ensure positive outcomes through these developments for a sustainable social market economy, and to address grey areas or gaps in rights and protections, and highlights the importance of protecting the quality and financial sustainability of social protection systems ensuring participation and protections for all workers, and that this needs to be given consideration in the development of the Pillar of Social Rights.

Clarification of the legal status of new labour market intermediaries such as on-line platforms is required, as well as establishing which standards, obligations and liabilities, health and safety and rules of operation apply, and emphasizes that labour inspectorates should be ensured a role to cover these employment forms and the resources competences and training to deal with them. The impact on collective bargaining coverage also needs to be analysed and anomalies that put workers regarded as self-employed or free-lance, yet not independent, outside of bargaining structures and risks them being considered cartels needs to be addressed.

 

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