All my sons: Labour Law and new forms of employment

Abstract

The 21st century is witnessing changes in the labor market, which have reduced traditional Labor Law’s ability to fulfill its objectives of guaranteeing dignified living conditions for all workers. Thus, there are tendencies of diversification and precarisation within the area of dependent labor, while outside their historical boundaries other forms of work demand protection that their own regulations are unable to provide. New forms of atypical and non-standard forms of employment arise, such as zero-hours contracts, voucher work, smart work and platform work. Each one of these defies long-lasting rules and regulations on the use of dependent work, which were constructed with a very different model of employment in mind. The consequence is that the 21st century requires a different regulatory model, in which block applications of differentiated regulations based on legal qualifications, as up to date, are not used any more, but instead more flexible techniques are applied, allowing common rules to be shared and ensuring a minimum standard of protection to all. Surprisingly enough, these techniques have been available to Labour Law for decades, but it has made a very reduced use of these.