From the Alps to the Pyramids nothing new under the sun. New and old answers to new and old issues

(Namely, from the ‘Turin Foodora-case’s tantamount-employee’ to the ‘Palermo Glovo-case’s employee’)

Abstract

Table of contents - 1. As a preface - 2. Setting the scene: hetero-organised work under the test of digital work- 3. The organisation "between" subordination and co-ordination? - 4. The con­text - 5. Recognising organisation from co-ordination - 6- Grammar of hetero-organisation - 6.1 Organisation, Co-ordination, Ordination - 6.2 One alienity and a half? - 7. Hermeneutic regression from the effects: four corollaries - 7.1 First corollary: employer’s rights - 7.2 Second corollary: neutrality of employer’s rights - 7.3 Third corollary: taxes and contributions benefits exclusion - 7.4 Fourth corollary: pointlessness third regulations theory - 8. Logical in­compatibility of the third regulation - 9. Re­straint the autonomous work - 10. An open-end con­clusion.

The article jointly studies the impact of work through digital platforms and of the vast AI (Artificial Intelligence#) robotics implementation on issues of Employment Law and Social Security. The point of view and the remedy which is suggested are both unorthodox. The point of view is one of law and literature; the remedy is taken from law and economics. Even if the paper agrees that the proposal of introducing both a social contribution on robots and a new regulation via apps follows on from the right question, it holds that such measures are not necessarily the right answer. In fact, since these would ‘anthropomorphise’ robots and algorithms, it would inevitably be useless, similar to any increase in social contributions. Conversely, the article proposes a radical change in perspective, deeming that social protection in the digital era requires new relationships between ‘every’ market and ‘the’ social justice. For the latter purpose, the chapter proposes to break the two alternative dichotomies of Bismarckian/Beveridgean systems of social provisions and that of employee/independent-contractor (at the level of regulation through the law). In this regard, such change is reached without extending the regulation of employees. Consequently, the chapter proposes to introduce a new ‘uniform’ and indirect financial system for protections for those who are not in a standard employment relationship. Such a ‘uniform’ financing device for social contributions is based on the ‘added value’ of work rather than (the opposite of how it actually is) based either on the wage of an employee or on the earnings of the self-employed. This way, the shifting boundaries of contracts between companies or firms and employees or workers, or even the self-employed, can be overcome because no particular contract is needed for protection.