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Digital Platforms

In Europe, Platform Workers Are Winning Limited Protections

As the European Parliament heads toward fresh elections in June, there’s one unresolved file on the desk of Brussels’s politicians and technocrats. The European Union (EU) Platform Work Directive, an attempt to establish a unified set of labor standards for workers on digital platforms like Uber and Deliveroo, has turned out to be a thorny issue. The EU’s various institutions have been banging heads over platform work regulation for years now, unable to bridge conflicting interests and ideologies. If passed, the Platform Work Directive would establish a whole set of new rights relating to algorithmic management.

Digital Solidarity In The Sharing Economy

Digital solidarity and the sharing economy may seem like natural companions. To be sure, the sharing economy with its melding of community and commerce has the potential to be a key contributor to digital solidarity in developing economies. Both concepts revolve around the idea of collaboration, sharing resources and funds, community-building, the network effect, increasing trust between strangers, and the leveraging of digital technologies for the greater good. In this blog post, we consider how the sharing economy can contribute to digital solidarity in a developing economy; the barriers to the sharing economy doing so; and if unchecked how it can distort an economy.