This book, adopting a multidisciplinary approach, investigates the definition of autonomous work and the kind of protection it receives and should receive in a global perspective. The book advocates for the existence of genuine autonomous work to be distinguished from employment and false self-employment. It deserves specific attention from legislators in the view of removing any obstacles to the exercise of freedom of association and collective action at large. The book is divided into two parts. The first focuses on the evolving notion of autonomy and its consequences on social protection, offering a theoretical frame from an organizational, political and legal point of view. The second aims at discovering new regulatory and protective horizons for autonomous work, in the light of blockchain, platform work, EU Competition Law, social security and liberal professions. Finally, the authors offer insights and recommendations on how to protect work beyond categories.

Platform work arrangements are often defended as an expression of technological progress with the potential to enable people to work as self-employed individuals, often without any supervision or control. However, by now, it is well-documented that platform work not only shares important features of flexibility and precariousness with other casual work arrangements that are on the rise around the world, but it also entails the risk of excluding a significant portion of workers from the protection of fundamental collective labour rights, including their coverage from collective agreements. In this important and timely book, the author shows how a human rights-based approach (HRBA) towards collective labour rights can bridge this protection gap. Such an approach identifies workers, regardless of their employment status, as rights-holders that are entitled to rights, like the right to collective bargaining, derived from international human rights and labour rights instruments. Fully describing the phenomenon of platform work as well as presenting a detailed global overview of responses related to the challenges stemming from platform work arrangements, the research, inter alia, covers aspects, such as the following: problems, challenges, and questions related to platform work arrangements, and how those are linked to broader labour market trends; platform work’s deeper foundational implications for labour law; legal developments related to the regulation of platform work with an assessment of their limits when it comes to collective labour rights, also recognised as human rights; various ways in which platform workers and other atypical workers have managed to exercise their collective labour rights; and promising indications of closer cooperation between organised labour and workers in non-standard forms of employment. The analysis draws on international human rights and labour rights treaties and conventions, domestic legislation and regulations, rulings from international and national courts, and interpretative and authoritative sources including the relevant legal literature. The book manifests and responds to a genuine need for in-depth research with respect to the protection of the human rights of platform workers with an analytical framework that will ensure their adequate protection. Its crucial observations will be welcomed by practitioners in labour law, human rights law, and competition law, as well as by academics, human resources professionals, and labour and employment policymakers.

This collective work has the aim to bring together several contributions by scholars from different Countries through the leitmotif of the analysis of work through digital platforms, also in the light of the latest proposal for a European Union directive. The first section focuses on the analysis of digital platform work, in various aspects, including issues concerning the use of artificial intelligence. The second section analyses issues related to the development of workers’ rights through digital platforms. In the third section, the authors made considerations on the intervention of the draft directive on qualification.

This book addresses the impact of Covid-19 on employment relations and provides a reconstruction and a critical assessment of the measures enacted worldwide to tackle the economic and social crisis triggered by the global health emergency. The pandemic has been a booster of critical issues that for years have been silently shaping society and the labor market and so it can represent an opportunity to relaunch a critical analysis on the future of work. Beginning from this assumption, this book collects contributions from different disciplines, including law, economics and organization theory. It covers topics such as the measures enacted to protect workers’ health and cushion the labour, the new inequalities that emerged during the pandemic and the strategies to construct a sustainable and human-centred development in the post pandemic scenario. It is highly relevant to scholars and students of organisation studies, resilience, the labour market and labour law.

Technological enhancements are transforming the modern workforce through transhumanism, a movement that explores the integration of advanced technology with human capabilities. By leveraging innovations such as brain-computer interfaces, augmented reality, and AI-driven cognitive tools, organizations can amplify employee potential while redefining productivity and creativity. These technologies also enable workers to enhance cognitive functions and adapt to complex tasks. As transhumanist ideals become prevalent, businesses must use this lens to create a more agile and capable workforce, where human and machine collaboration leads to efficiency and innovation. Enhancing the Modern Workforce Through Transhumanism examines the effects of transhumanism on modern employees and their potential productivity and efficiency. It offers solutions for workplace development using technology like robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmentation, and data analysis. This book covers topics such as digital technology, ethics, and workplace culture, and is a useful resource for computer engineers, human resource professionals, business owners, healthcare workers, economists, academicians, scientists, and researchers.

At the core of all societies and economies are human beings deploying their energies and talents in productive activities - that is, at work. The law governing human productive activity is a large part of what determines outcomes in terms of social justice, material wellbeing, and the sustainability of both. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that work is heavily regulated. This Handbook examines the 'law of work', a term that includes legislation setting employment standards, collective labour law, workplace discrimination law, the law regulating the contract of employment, and international labour law. It covers the regulation of relations between employer and employee, as well as labour unions, but also discussions on the contested boundaries and efforts to expand the scope of some laws regulating work beyond the traditional boundaries. Written by a team of experts in the field of labour law, the Handbook offers a comprehensive review and analysis, both theoretical and critical. It includes 60 chapters, divided into four parts. Part A establishes the fundamentals, including the historical development of the law of work, why it is needed, the conceptual building blocks, and the unsettled boundaries. Part B considers the core concerns of the law of work, including the contract of employment doctrines, main protections in employment legislation, the regulation of collective relations, discrimination, and human rights. Part C looks at the international and transnational dimension of the law of work. The final Part examines overarching themes, including discussion of recent developments such as gig work, online work, artificial intelligence at work, sustainable development, amongst others.

Much remains to be known about occupational safety and health, occupational diseases, legislation, practices, and cases worldwide, as well as the implications for sustainable development in different countries in pandemic crisis conditions. Thus, a better understanding of the different safety and health management developments across different contexts to assess their impact on sustainability is needed. The Handbook of Research on Key Dimensions of Occupational Safety and Health Protection Management discusses the necessity to protect the workforce and the importance of occupational safety and health management. This book will encourage organizations to create a preventative safety and health culture. Covering topics such as economic development, employment injury insurance, and personnel security, this book is an excellent resource for managers of public and private organizations, executives, professionals, researchers, policymakers, human resource managers, government authorities, professionals, students, and academicians.

Today, privacy is one of the most hotly debated topics worldwide. The book aims to balance the development of personal rights in a country that has historically valued collective rights over those of the individual. The protection of privacy is not an issue that has been emphasised during the rapid development of economic laws in China. However, the accompanying development of greater government-based regulation of these laws’ implementation has led to greater invasions of personal privacy. This study attempts to provide a way forward for China to address the ever-increasing concerns about the protection of privacy and puts forward a legislative model for protection. This is achieved after a thorough analysis of the threats to privacy protection in China, a critical evaluation of the level of current privacy protection in China, and an analysis of the privacy laws in a series of developed nations based on common law and civil law.

Undercover investigators have been celebrated as critical conduits of political speech and essential protectors of transparency. They have also been derided as intrusive and spy-like, inconsistent with private property rights, and morally or ethically questionable. In Truth and Transparency, Alan K. Chen and Justin Marceau rigorously examine this duality and seek to provide a socio-legal context for understanding these varying views. The book concretely defines undercover investigations, distinguishes the practice from investigative journalism and whistleblowing, and provides a comprehensive legal history. Chapters explore the public need for investigations and the rights of investigators, paying close attention to the types of investigations that fall beyond the scope of constitutional protection. The book also provides concrete empirical evidence of the broad, bipartisan support for undercover investigations and champions the practice as an essential com-ponent of the transparency our democracy needs to thrive.

This publication examines the need to expand social protection coverage of the informal sector to support working age productivity, reduce vulnerability, and improve economic opportunity. Case studies from Bangladesh, the People's Republic of China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand offer suggestions to close social protection gaps and recommend policy solutions to create equitable and inclusive social protection programs for informal workers.