Elgar Companion to Regulating Platform Work

Edited by Kurt Vandaele, Senior Researcher and Silvia Rainone, Senior Researcher, European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), Brussels, Belgium

‘This groundbreaking volume provides a timely, insightful, and multidisciplinary exploration of the platform economy's impact on food delivery workers in Europe and beyond. Integrating perspectives from economics, sociology, law, and industrial relations, it combines rigorous empirical analysis with nuanced qualitative research to examine the power dynamics between platforms and workers, the role of algorithmic management, and emerging forms of worker resistance. With a keen eye on the implications of the EU Platform Work Directive, the authors explore the complex interplay of regulation, technology, and labor rights. This comprehensive volume is an essential read for policymakers, researchers, and advocates seeking to understand and shape a more just and equitable future of work.’

• Contents1 Regulating platform work: insights from the food delivery sector in Europeand beyond 1Kurt Vandaele and Silvia RainonePART I ACTORS 212 Shaping space and being shaped by it: analysing the socio-spatial dialecticof food delivery platforms 22Heiner Heiland3 Icarus in a coma: mapping food delivery platform companies in Europe 37Kurt Vandaele4 E pluribus union(s)? Assessing the diversity of organisation among fooddelivery couriers across Europe 59Vincenzo Maccarrone, Lorenzo Cini, Jörg Nowak and Arianna Tassinari5 The changing composition of app-based food delivery couriers and theconsequences for collectivism 76Cosmin Popan and Kristin JesnesPART II MOBILISATION AND ISSUES 956 Patterns of labour unrest among app-based food delivery workers inEurope: the surprising persistence of industrial relations regimes 96Mark Stuart, Vera Trappmann, Denis Neumann, Simon Joyce, IouliaBessa and Charles Umney7 Assessing the quality of food delivery platform work: towards a conceptualframework for job quality in the platform economy 114Agnieszka Piasna and Wouter Zwysen8 The problem of unpaid labour in food delivery platforms in Europe:understanding the role of socio-technical and employment contract effects 133Valeria Pulignano and Damian GrimshawPART III OUTCOMES AND REGULATION 1499 Platforms, wages and individual bargaining power: assessing labourmarket competition among Swedish couriers 150Carl Fredrik Söderqvist10 Judicial creativity in the platform economy: normative insights forbroadening the scope of labour law 169Silvia Rainone and Christina Hiessl11 Regulating platform work in the European Union: initiatives, challengesand the ways ahead 188Despoina GeorgiouPART IV CLOSING THOUGHTS: BEYOND EUROPE AND FOOD DELIVERY 20512 Challenges in advocating recognition and protection among deliveryplatform workers across the Americas: cases from Argentina, Chile,Mexico and the US 206María Figueroa and María Eugenia Rodríguez13 Avenues for social empowerment: the cooperative model for app-basedfood delivery and beyond 232Denise Kasparian14 The spillover effect of algorithmic management and how (not) to tame it 251Nastazja Potocka-Sionek and Antonio Aloisi15 The limits of fissurisation in platform work: the case of food deliveryservices 270Anke Hassel