ForewordThe "platformization of work" appeared in the 2000s, notably with VTC services, and is now spreading to all sectors of the economy: it is reflected in an explosion in the number of platform workers, "jobbers" and "freelancers".These platforms support intense price competition between themselves and with the traditional players in their sector of activity, and for this purpose, instead of employees, they use legally independent workers, who have no rights or social protection.The functioning of these platforms is based, moreover, on an algorithmic management that combines surveillance, recommendation systems and rating. The asymmetry of information, the opacity of the use of collected data and the functioning of the algorithms install, according to CNIL analysts (see below), an imbalance between workers and platforms.The mobilization of Uber drivers and Deliveroo delivery drivers in major cities around the world has led to court decisions (most recently in France) court decisions The mobilization of Uber drivers and Deliveroo delivery workers in metropolises around the world has led to court decisions (most recently in France) reclassifying the services provided by these workers to the platforms as employment contracts, thus transforming the platforms into employers with obligations towards their employees.Beyond the still insufficient guarantees granted by law to platform workers and the initiatives taken by some platforms, it is now necessary, according to a Senate information mission (see below), " to guarantee all platform workers, and not only those of mobility platforms, the right to disconnect and to extend to platform workers the guarantees enjoyed by employees in terms of safety at work and to entrust the labor inspectorate with the task of monitoring compliance by platforms.Beyond its most visible forms (VTC and delivery services), this "work platformization" now extends to business services. Studies carried out following a call for research projects launched by the research departments of the Ministries of Solidarity and Labor (DREES and DARES) highlight the extension of this work platformization to intellectual and IT services, with the emergence of a new generation of "skills intermediaries" (see below).
Contents
Uberisation of society: what impact do digital platforms have on jobs and employment?
Data: poison and cure for platform workers?
Digital "freelancers" in the light of the "collaborative economy
Ethnographic survey: platform workers, when mutual aid becomes a trap
"Jobbing leads to a change of perspective on platform workers"
Sociology of student employment in the face of the rise of digital platforms
Competence intermediaries": towards the next wave of platformisation?
A European directive under discussion to protect the rights of platform workers
Uberisation of society: what impact do digital platforms have on jobs and employment?A Senate information mission looked into the development of digital work platforms and the transformations of jobs and professions that they bring about. These platforms tend to challenge our social and economic model and impose algorithmic management practices on their workers, which need to be better supervised.After having heard more than 60 people in some thirty hearings, the fact-finding mission drew up a series of observations and, in conclusion, formulated 18 recommendations based on four major issues:
improving working conditions;
the development of social dialogue ;
the supervision of algorithmic management and transparency;
the explicability and regulation of platform algorithms.
The platformization of the economy is making a major contribution, as the fact-finding mission notes, "to the polarization of the labor market between effectively independent workers who have freely chosen this status in order to satisfy their need for independence and to increase their income, the so-called 'freelancers', and low-skilled workers who suffer from a situation of great insecurity as a condition of access to the platform and are often placed in a situation of subordination to it. The platforms allow the latter to access an activity and not a job, within the framework of a real "cracking" of work.The fact-finding mission observes that it is important to recognize the impact of the platform model on job insecurity: "while platforms allow people who have been excluded from the traditional labor market to integrate into it in good times and bad, they often place their workers in a position of economic dependence by exercising more or less assertive managerial power over them, in particular through the unilateral setting of the price of the service and the conditions under which it is provided, and, more generally, through control of the essential elements of the employment relationship .In addition to the still insufficient guarantees granted by law to platform workers and the initiatives taken by some platforms, the fact-finding mission believes that it is now necessary to " guarantee all platform workers, and not just those on mobility platforms, the right to disconnect and to extend to platform workers the guarantees enjoyed by employees in terms of safety at work and to make the labor inspectorate responsible for monitoring compliance by platforms.The rest of the article
Data: poison and cure for platform workers?The management logic of platform workers is based, for the most part, on data: usage data and customer ratings, observed, The CNIL's innovation laboratory (LINC), on the other hand, has noted that"Through incentives, integrated in a more or less transparent way in the architecture and interface of platforms, they influence or even constrain the behavior of their workers. This management, more or less explicit, uses the data to arrange and evolve the user experience (workers as well as customers) in a way that corresponds to the development objectives of the service".Asymmetry of information, opacity on the use of dataThe first generations of platforms, such as Uber and Lyft, used mechanisms from the behavioral sciences ( "nudges ".) to induce their workforce to act in the platform's interest, at the expense of their own. "Today, these processes go far beyond nudge, platforms are structurally at the origin of an imbalance of power due to the asymmetry of information, the opacity of the use of collected data, the ambivalence of the functioning and purposes of the algorithms, among others..."."These companies exercise a form of management of the drivers' work behaviors, while believing that this relationship is a matter of customer support between the platform and the driver-clients of its services."To optimize the customer journey by reducing waiting time and remain competitive, Uber creates an asymmetry of information : "the driver is required to accept a ride request without first knowing the destination or the amount that the job could generate, or risk having his account deactivated. The trip cancellation rate is thus reduced, and the probability that a passenger will find a trip increases, to the detriment of the driver, who loses his ability to choose. Drivers are thus subject to the management of the platform, constrained by the design of the interface and subject to the choices of data that the platform operators keep or reveal.At the heart of data-driven management: reputation systemsOn some platforms, worker ratings are made available to clients as a decision-making tool. A high rating allows you to be more visible and to be offered more tasks.These recommendation systems are perceived as neutral, while in reality the lack of transparency regarding the algorithms that govern them creates a form of informational advantage for the platform."The clients using these platforms are furthermore encouraged to contribute to this asymmetrical relationship, without necessarily being aware that these rating systems constitute a form of management, which can have a direct impact on the professional activity of the worker (such as deactivation of the account)".However, workers do not benefit from the value of the data they generate, and their reputation remains attached to each platform. "This generates a dependency on platforms that do not allow for reputation transfer. To change platforms or to practice on several of them, time, effort and money are needed to regain one's reputation capital.Data, the LINC analysts conclude, "is thus at the heart of collective and individual bargaining in new forms of work. The GDPR represents an opportunity for workers in the on-demand economy to regain control of their data, including through the right of access and the right to portability."
Digital "freelancers" in the light of the "collaborative economyWithin the framework of theCall for projects "Forms of the collaborative economy launched by the research departments of the Ministries of Labor and Solidarity (DARES and DREES), Yannick Fondeur, a social science researcher at the CNAM, has undertaken to study the freelancing, at the crossroads of three spheres with major issues in terms of work and employment:
Freelancing, regularly presented as the advanced plate of " the future of work ";
platformization and the "collaborative economy";
digital professions, a segment of the labor market that is "under pressure" and a reservoir of qualified jobs for the years to come.
Yannick Fondeur focused his study on independent developers, in their relationship with two new networked productive forms: "platforms" and autonomous collectives of independent workers.Faced with digital service companies (ESN, ex-SSII, Sociétés de Services en Ingénierie Informatique), the freelancing platforms put forward a "disintermediated" model based on a reduced and transparent commission. For several years now, they have been working hard to get themselves listed by the purchasing departments of major accounts.The rest of the article
Ethnographic survey: platform workers, when mutual aid becomes a trapWhile the recognition of their rights (to salaried employment, in particular, but also to social protection) is the subject of court decisions, Sophia Galière, a lecturer in management sciences, and Claire Le Breton, a postdoctoral researcher, have studied the online discussion groups of couriers.Their ethnographic survey mixes observations of discussion groups on social networks (Facebook, Telegram) and forty interviews with deliverymen of ready-made meals using these groups. .According to the study, " the overwhelming majority of discussions observed on these devices actually deal with workers' daily concerns (...). Online chat groups, even when they are 'secret' and deployed on encrypted applications like Telegram, remain primarily places where couriers exchange about good work practices.""These operational exchanges, which are necessary to hope to generate regular and sufficient income from their activity on platforms, allow uberized workers to better cope with unsatisfactory working conditions."For these individuals," the two researchers point out, " the urgent task is to learn how to deal with the multiple constraints that weigh on their activity: how to deal with the administrative procedures associated with the status of micro-entrepreneur when the delivery of ready-made meals is not the result of a long-term entrepreneurial project? How to understand the functioning of the opaque algorithms that remotely coordinate the work when the only training received has been very rudimentary? And how to manage the unexpected (accidents, problems with orders, restaurant owners or customers) when local management is reduced to support services relocated to other continents? The rest of the article
"Jobbing leads to a change of perspective on platform workers"Jobbing is in development in France since 2010. The jobbing platforms put in contact individuals who would like to have a task done and individuals who commit to respond to this request in exchange for payment. This order economy is based on various missions (fixing a curtain rod, making a photo montage, performing a cleaning service, mowing a lawn, helping with a move, etc.).The Maurice Halbwachs Centre (ENS-EHESS) has undertaken to understand, through the case of jobbing, who are the individuals offering their services on the platforms, in which configurations they do so and why their identification is problematic.According to Marine Snape and Marion Plault, "jobbing leads to a change of perspective on platform workers: "jobbers can indeed have very diverse activity statuses, they can be in a pluriactivity situation, unemployed or considered as "inactive".At the conclusion of their investigation, the two researchers highlight three main findings:
"Far from being a homogeneous population, jobbers are characterized by the diversity of their profiles, their use of platforms and their motivations.
"Platform work cannot be reduced to self-employment. Jobbing takes various forms (salaried employment, self-employment, "classic" self-employment) and is often part of a situation where individuals who are otherwise covered by the social protection system (main job or unemployment in particular) combine their activities. The social protection needs of jobbers differ according to their situation.
"Jobbing is currently a phenomenon that is impossible to identify from a statistical point of view using the usual databases. The use of ethnographic data from the field survey, however, allows us to characterize the profiles of the jobbers registered on two platforms: they reveal an important gendered division of activities, an over-representation of unemployed people but also of higher education graduates".
Sociology of student employment in the face of the rise of digital platformsOf the 2.6 million students in France, 40% have a paid job (excluding internships) in addition to their studies. With the lengthening of study time, the search for funding through paid activities can be crucial.In recent years, digital platforms and applications have emerged specifically for students, promising them easy access to varied, well-paid jobs that are easy to fit into their schedules.Noting the rise of digital employment platforms, a team of sociologists (" Worlds of student employment in the digital age ") studied the effect of these digital intermediaries on student employment, as part of theCall for projects "Forms of the collaborative economy launched by the research departments of the Ministries of Labor and Solidarity (DARES and DREES).Digital employment intermediaries for students take the form of sites, web platforms, or mobile apps, which make three general promises:
To find a job quickly for students who are mostly young, well connected and spontaneously turn to the Internet;
allow for easy integration of the professional schedule into the academic schedule - evolving throughout the year;
work according to your financial needs, carrying out one-off missions without any long-term commitment, thanks to the micro-entrepreneur status.
The rest of the article
Competence intermediaries": towards the next wave of platformisation?The Institute for Economic and Social Research (IRES), for its part, draws attention to the development of platforms that connect professionals with client companies. According to the IRES, " B2B work platforms are one of the next waves of platformization ".Intellectual service professions (IT, marketing, communication, consulting, design) are particularly sensitive to the effects of platforms and the new organizational models made possible by digital technology."These new skills intermediaries are likely to occupy a growing place in competition with traditional players such as temporary staff, Digital Service Companies (DSCs) and IT services companies, leading to an unprecedented phase of outsourcing and contributing to blurring the boundaries of organizations and companies. Several factors combine to promote the development of these " skills intermediaries": technology, the demand for work via outsourcing and the use of subcontractors, and the supply of work with the social demand for autonomy.After pointing out a " clear lack of knowledge" , whether it is about the number of people involved, the actors operating in France, or the volume of business involved, the IRES researchers alerted the public authorities " to the inconsistencies, the unspoken facts and the difficulties in understanding the size of the B2B labor intermediary market" as well as the difficulties in understanding the working conditions of these workers, who are "often invisible and geographically dispersed".In the absence of a " definite typology of these actors in the literature", IRES proposes to distinguish four intermediate types:
Specialist platforms linked to historical players in labor intermediation (in particular deployed or acquired by temporary work players), or positioned very early on the freelance "market", even before technological developments allowed the deployment of platforms;
start-up platforms" in the intermediation business, which include more recent players, positioned from the outset as "natively digital" players;
Collective intermediaries, which include self-employed people gathered in collectives and actors organized in a cooperative format (in a BDC or not) within the same category;
The "consulting intermediaries" grouping collectives of freelancers with a high level of expertise ("premium talents", very often created by former strategy consultants, often of small size).
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A European directive under discussion to protect the rights of platform workersIn December 2021, the European Commission proposed a directive to improve working conditions when working via a platform. The proposed directive provides a list of criteria for determining whether the platform is an employer.If the platform meets the required criteria, it is legally presumed to be an employer.As a result of the proposed directive, the European Commission estimates that " between 1.7 and 4.1 million people could be reclassified as workers. Others may become truly self-employed, as some platforms could adapt their business model."Being classified as a worker means that platform workers will have access to the following:
guaranteed rest periods and paid vacations;
at least the national or sectoral minimum wage (if applicable) ;
safety and health protection;
unemployment, sickness and health care benefits;
parental leave ;
pension rights ;
Workplace injury and occupational disease benefits.
The Commission's proposed directive also aims to increase transparency in the use of algorithms by platforms, ensuring human oversight and the right to challenge automated decisions."National authorities often face difficulties in accessing data on platforms and the people working on them," the European Commission observes. Its proposal " will bring more transparency to platforms by clarifying existing obligations to report work to national authorities. The new rules will require platforms to make available to national authorities certain information about their activities and the people working on them."
