Platform work and the changing of definitions of employee and employer

Abstract

During the 20th century the relationship between the employee and employer changed within a certain economic formation. The conceptual definitions of labor law as a branch of law corresponded to needs of industrial society. If for a long time this was mainly investigated from the view of differentiating the features of labor regulation of certain categories of workers, then at the beginning of the new millennium, with the development of technology and artificial intelligence, it became necessary to revise the classical understanding of the labor relationship and its subjects. The growing gig economy, combined with advances in artificial intelligence, is destroying not only familiar business models, but also traditional notions of work and of the employee and employer in the traditional labor law context. Nowadays, when there is an understanding of the future legal foundations of the digital economy, it is important to choose the right path of development and answer the question: To what extent do the values of traditional labor law meet modern challenges in the field of employment? The introduction of new technologies in the field of employment and the departure from the concept of a “responsible (single) employer” are the features of a new inevitable stage of social development. With all the risks that the development of robotics and artificial intelligence carries for humans, rejection of the achievements of scientific and technological progress at this stage is not possible. In this regard, in the matter of changing the concepts of employee, employer, and labor relations in the digital economy, it is important to consider not so much the actual terminological aspect, as to determine how technological factors of recent years affect their legal nature.