Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The author considers that working 'for others' must constitute the basis of the protections ensured by labour law. The “labour” that deserves social protection cannot be limited to the narrow sphere of technical and legal subordination, but it is necessary to identify a new reference type that goes “beyond” subordination. More specifically, the labour law system must be reconstructed on two interrelated levels: a first civil contractual level in which the regulation takes place on the basis of types and cases; a second “labour law level”, in which the distribution of protections, according to the value of labour, takes also place on the basis of new criteria for expressing the social vulnerability. The interpretative adaptation of the notion of subordination, while feasible, would not lead to satisfactory results. The meaning of the normative statement in Article 2094 of the Italian Civil Code does not seem so uncertain as to justify a “purposive” interpretation and to attribute a different and broader normative content to the concept of subordination. It seems preferable to adopt a universalistic approach in which protections can be selectively extended to the whole world of labour, starting from subordination but going beyond subordination, and declined according to the specific needs of social protection expressed and the material conditions in which the work (without adjectives) is performed. In conclusion, it is necessary that the labour law continues to protect dependent work possibly more than before, but at the same time, it is necessary a movement beyond subordination, using the techniques of selective universalism. Notions such as "economic dependence", "personal labour relations", "hetero-organisation" are not alternative criteria to subordination, but criteria that help labour law to recover its strength and justification, from a legal and moral point of view.

Spain has been one of the countries with the highest level of judicialization of the clasification conflict about platform work. Dozens of judgments have been handed down in recent years. Most have indicated the subordination of the platforms workers in the transport sector, despite some have argued that they were genuine self-employed. This contradiction in doctrine has allowed/forced the Spanish Supreme Court to rule about the issue. The decision referred to in this article was handed down by the Labor section of the Supreme Court, in plenary session, and was adopted unanimously by judges. In this judgment the Supreme Court considers that the delivery man is an employee, on the one hand, for the fact of classifying the digital platform as a relevant productive element –against with the motorcycle which is of negligible value-, and, on the other hand, by arguing that the delivery man performed his duties under the brand and for the clients of the company which owned the platform.

On 25 September 2020, the Spanish Supreme Court, for the first time, ruled on the working relationship of the riders of Glovo. The judges, overturning the first and the second instance judgements, have considered that the delivery man is an employee, ensuring the traditional indices of trabajo por cuenta ajena in new forms of work via digital platform and, particulary, given the existence of the result alienation as well as the organization alienation. The dispute, as in other legal systems, is an opportunity to assess the traditional categories in which to frame a working relationship and check their value in the era of technological development of the entrepreneurial organization: the classic dichotomy between salaried employment and self-employment does not fail in front of new forms of work and, although renewed, resists.

Following years of declining labour activism, militant forms of worker mobilization have recently emerged in the Italian platform economy and logistics sector, exhibiting novel forms of organisation and action repertoires. This paper investigates two cases which have been ongoing since 2011, namely mobilizations by logistics porters and food delivery couriers. Both cases seem puzzling since workers have mobilized under circumstances normally associated with non-mobilization, meaning a workplace characterized by technological innovation and by absent or ineffective traditional labour unions. Why and how have these mobilizations occurred? We argue that these workers successfully overcame such circumstances by relying on resources and opportunities related to their workplace and external to it, which they have been able to create and develop over several years. We gathered data from semi-structured interviews with workers, union representatives, lawyers, managers and participated at political meetings, strikes, and protest events in four Italian cities between 2018 and 2019.

The Author believes that the dichotomy "subordination/autonomy" should be preserved, given the conditions that its internal balances get completely redesigned, starting from the adoption of a broader notion of subordination designed around the concept of dependence of the work performance. This tendency is present in the most recent labour legislation, projected towards a broader notion of dependence, whose boundaries are still undefined. In this context, case law plays an important role in conceptual frameworks. On the other hand, the economic dependence “formula” may vary according to the terms of the comparison, exposing to the risk of protecting situations that do not deserve protection and sacrificing specific interests and values that instead do deserve protection. Maintaining a strong ideological-political value, the formula of economic dependence risks being exposed to individualised interpretations. By means of a broader concept of subordination it is instead possible to continue to achieve the purpose of labour law: the compensation of the contractual imbalance between the parties, albeit within a framework in which legislative interventions aimed at guaranteeing protection in a solidarity-based and universalistic logic are increasingly frequent.

In spite of the technological changes experienced by the economic organisations, the concept of employment continues to be a milestone of labour and employment law. The main goal of labour law should be that of enlarging the scope of employment protection as to include blue collar workers such as food delivery riders and app-drivers. Genuine self-employment plays nonetheless a central role while the number of working poor has substantially increased in the self-employment sector. These changes enhance the need to increase the level of social security protection and to guarantee decent minimum wages, collective bargaining, right to strike.

Is the concept of “subordination” still valid and applicable to define the employment relationship in digital and platform firms? According to the Author the answer to this question must be positive: the subordination survives and it is alive even if the organizational constraints able to generate it are changed and they cannot any more be identified necessarily with employer powers of unilateral direction on time, space and executive ways to carry out employee individual work activity. Nevertheless employee contractual obligations need to be adapted to the new organization of the firm, that allows an extensive autonomy of the worker, on one hand, but on the other it requires a higher rate of contractual liability concerning the individual performance.

The author reflects on the evolution of the notion of “subordination”, following its most significant stages: from the "Barassian" model, to the crisis of the 1980s, up to the events of our times. Today, in the context of the digital economy, subordination seems less suitable to express a condition of social-economic subjection. For the future, it is possible to imagine the passage to a model of protection based on a floor of rights for the person who "works in favour of others" and on further protections that can be modulated according to the protection needs, but irrespective of modalities of the work performance. This evokes a return to the late nineteenth-century model of "social legislation", from which everything originated.

The Editor in Chief presents the Reports & Comments section dedicated to the "riders issue" in Italy (and beyond)

The purpose of this research was to assess the influence of public infrastructure investment on the economic growth of the Puno region, for the period 2000-2019. The methodological design applied was non-experimental, with a longitudinal descriptive character and a quantitative approach, with data collection from the economic transparency portal of the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF). Time series were considered for the analysis of each of the variables, using the econometric model of maximum likelihood (MVS) LIN - LOG, these were used for a better comprehension of the role of investment in public infrastructure on economic growth. A clear relationship has been demonstrated between public infrastructure investments in the economic growth of the Puno region. Public infrastructure investment in education significantly affects economic growth, i.e. an increase of 1% in public infrastructure investment in education will increase the GDP by 3 054 862 soles. In the case of public infrastructure investment in health, it does not significantly influence economic growth. Finally, public infrastructure investment in agriculture has a significant influence, but indirectly, on economic growth. In other words, an increase in public infrastructure investment in agriculture of 1 percent would reduce GDPby 2 889 537 soles.