A Fair Wage for Workers On-Demand via App

Work-on-demand via Application encompasses the outsourcing of very traditional jobs, such as driving or cleaning, to workers engaged by digital platforms as independent contractors. According to recent studies and empirical findings, these workers, often deprived of any basic employment and social protections, face a high economic uncertainty. Granting them the application of the minimum wage could be a way to alleviate it and provide a fairer distribution of the profits generated by the digital platforms. The Author investigates possible solutions to achieve this target. After having excluded that workers on-demand via app can be normally classified as ‘employees’ and excluded that their inclusion into, already existing or brand new, intermediate categories can lead to satisfactory outcomes, he moved to a de jure condendo perspective. He argues that the best solution should consider workers on-demand via application as part of the category of self-employed performing personal work. He proposes a new redistribution of employment protections towards all personal work relations, aimed at reworking the rigidity of the dichotomy employment (full rights) / self-employment (no rights), based on a purposive approach. The article concludes then by considering the issues that the proposal at stake will face in the light of competition law and free movement of services with the EU single market.