New Forms of Employment in Europe

Bulletin of Comparative Labour Relations Volume 94

New Forms of Employment and EU Law sheds light on policy options for policymakers and practitioners on the position regarding new forms of employment in EU Member States and other European countries. In recent years, new forms of employment have been on the rise all over Europe. The ‘full-time job’ is now no longer an option for many people seeking employment. It has been replaced by an ever-expanding plethora of ‘atypical’ employment relationships designed by employers to streamline their operations and/or take advantage of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). Numerous labour law issues arise, demanding urgent attention. How should law and policy best address these challenges? This timely book explores this contentious topic in depth, presenting ten penetrating chapters on aspects of the topic by leading European labour law authorities followed by reports on new forms of employment in thirty-five European countries.

What’s in this book:

Full-scale analysis of new forms of employment, their characteristics, and their effects on working conditions and the labour market includes such issues as the following:

• employment relationships with more than one employer;
• discontinuous and/or intermittent work;
• work based on networking arrangements;
• labour pooling;
• crowd sourcing;
• lack of worker representation;
• rights for vulnerable migrant workers;
• removal of wage and hours threshold;
• false self-employment;
• non-payment of ‘small’ amounts (e.g., holiday pay);
• portage salarial – umbrella companies;
• voucher-based work;
• ICT-based mobile work;
• organisations offering specific administrative services;
• need for safety nets for workers; and
• existing and potential monitoring and control mechanisms.

Relevant EU Directives and national legal frameworks regarding new forms of employment are fully discussed, with an emphasis on recent trends and proposed solutions.

How this will help you:

This book presents jurisdictional reports by experts on new forms of employment in their respective countries, raises awareness of the problems generated by new emerging forms of employment, and provides some answers and insights, including lessons to be learned from current developments. In particular, the authors’ shedding light on issues that have not been sufficiently addressed so far under European law provides additional knowledge to labour law practitioners, company legal counsel, human resources professionals, and academics in the field.