4.3 CROWDWORKING
4.3.3 PERSPECTIVES
Crowdworkers do their job in a quite isolated situation – comparable to homeworkers in the past. Experience shows that it is quite difficult to achieve a common action under such circumstances. What can be done to improve the situation for crowdworkers? Better protection will perhaps make this alternative less attractive for employers which could be useful for workers in traditional jobs, too.
The first step should be that crowdworkers communicate with each other and make their individual problems known to other people. In the U.S. some people have established
“turkopticon”, a platform for crowdworkers who have contracts with Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT). As different firms put their offers on the AMT-platform, there will be “good ones” paying a reasonable price and paying on time, and there will be “bad ones” who pay low sums and do so rather less timeously. Contracts with the “bad ones” can be avoided. In extreme cases there can be a boycott in the sense that nobody will contact a firm having a very bad reputation. Thus, over-exploitation would be made impossible53. The German metalworkers’ union (IG Metall) has established a comparable forum over the internet;
crowdworkers may contact www.faircrowdwork.com, communicate their experiences and ask for advice. The German service union offers such a service, too54. The internet makes it easier for individuals to avoid isolation.
51 OJ 21.4.1993, L 95/29.
52 As to details about illegal clauses see Däubler (above note 48).
53 How turkopticon functions is described at Irani/Silberman, Ein Tool, um Arbeiter auf Mechanical Turk sichtbar zu machen, in: Benner (above note 43) p. 131 et seq.
54 http://www.ich-bin-mehr-wert.de/support/cloudworking.
34 What is the next step? Extend the notion of ‘employee’ to crowdworkers and make labour law applicable? In Germany, this will be a task for courts as the legislator has recently given in § 611a of the Civil Code a general definition which followed completely the existing case law. But court decisions have to be prepared by a general discussion among lawyers as well as the media: if television shows that crowdworkers really earn only 2 Euros an hour a court will perhaps be inclined to change the situation. The scientific discussion has its importance, too. And one should find persons who are willing to defend their rights in courts – no easy task if the concerned persons are anxious to get contracts any more.
Labour law as such offers better possibilities to improve the situation of crowdworkers but there is no guarantee that this will happen. How can collective agreements be reached? Or how can minimum standards be reached if the courts do not accept labour law being applied?
The pressure of public opinion may be quite important, even more important than the traditional means of a strike which would be difficult to organize. We have to look for examples of how people in a comparative situation managed to reach minimum standards.
One can refer to the case of 74.000 home-care aids in California who were able to build their own union and to get much better conditions55. Another example may be the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, a new form of union: instead of organizing traditional collective action the organisation gives information to its members about prices in the market and about good and bad employers, with the bad ones risking to getting no day workers any more56. We can find the same principle in the movement of the “travelling journeymen” (called in German: “Gesellenbewegung”) which has existed in Central Europe since the 13th century.
Bad employers i.e. (at that time) craftsmen were formally “discredited”; no journeyman could conclude a contract with them without being discredited, too57. The boycott replaces the strike and other means of collective actions. Its mere existence presents a very important incentive to employers or entrepreneurs to offer fair conditions. Obviously, we have to broaden our horizons in order to find adequate answers.
Today, the framework for discussion about improving the situation of crowdworkers is quite a traditional one: How can we manage to reach a comparable level of protection to that
55 Details at Klare, The Horizons of Transformative Labour and Employment Law, in: Conaghan/Fischl/Klare (ed.), Labour Law in an Era of Globalization. Transformative Practices & Possibilities, Oxford 2000, p. 20 et seq.
56 See http://ndlon.org.DetailsatDäubler, Representation of Workers’ Interests outside Collective Bargaining, in:
Gorelli Hernández (coord,), El Derecho a la Negociación Colectiva. Liber Amicorum Profesor Antonio Ojeda Avilés, Sevilla 2014, p. 99 et seq.
57 See Däubler, in: Däubler (ed.), Arbeitskampfrecht, 4. Aufl., Baden-Baden 2018, § 1 Rn. 5 et seq. (with further references).
35 which is currently given to employees in an office? This is important, without any doubt. But would it not be necessary to think about the future in a digitalized society? What does it mean for our lives to be surrounded by the internet of things? Are we just going to accept or to copy whatever is developed in Silicon Valley? Or should we have an alternative model of the digitalized society, something like a left-wing utopia? It is not the task of labour lawyers to develop it, but we could and we should offer our contribution.
6 REFERÊNCIAS
Benner (Hrsg.), Crowdwork – zurück in die Zukunft? Perspektiven digitaler Arbeit, Frankfurt/Main (Bund-Verlag) 2015, 420 S.
Boewe/Schulten, Recht auf Abschalten, Die Mitbestimmung Heft 4/2014 (Bund-Verlag), abrufbar unter www.boeckler.de.
Conaghan/Fischl/Klare (ed.), Labour Law in the Era of Globalisation. Transformative Practices & Possibilities, Oxford (Oxford University Press) 2000, 546 p.
Däubler (Hrsg.), Arbeitskampfrecht, 4. Aufl., Baden-Baden (Nomos-Verlag) 2018, 1005 S.
Däubler, Entgrenzung der Arbeit - ein Problem des Arbeitsrechts? SR (=Soziales Recht) 2014 S. 45 – 65 (Bund-Verlag).
Däubler, Das Arbeitsrecht, 12. Aufl., Frankfurt/Main (Bund-Verlag) 2017, 591 S.
Däubler, Digitalisierung und Arbeitsrecht, 6. Aufl., Frankfurt/Main 2018.
Däubler/Müller, Chinesische Arbeitgeber in Deutschland, AiB (= Arbeitsrecht im Betrieb) Heft 2/2015, S. 33 – 36 (Bund-Verlag).
Fröbel/Heinrichs/Kreye, Die neue internationale Arbeitsteilung, Reinbek (Rowohlt) 1977, 653 S.
Giese, Abschalten gegen Dauerstress, AiB (= Arbeitsrecht im Betrieb) Heft 9/2014, S. 64 – 66 (Bund-Verlag).
Gorelli-Hernández (coord.), El Derecho a la Negociación Colectiva. Liber Amicorum Profesor Antonio Ojeda Avilés, Sevilla (Consejo Andaluz de Relaciones Laborales) 2014, 567 p.
Hensel/Schönefeld/Kocher/Schwarz/Koch (Hrsg.), Selbständige Unselbständigkeit.
Crowdworking zwischen Autonomie und Kontrolle, Baden-Baden 2019.
Hepple/Veneziani (ed.), The Transformation of Labour Law in Europe, Oxford and Portland/Oregon (Hart Publishing) 2009, 393 p.
36 Hötte, Crowdsourcing. Rechtliche Risiken eines neuen Phänomens, MMR (=Multimedia und Recht) 2014, 795 – 798 (Beck-Verlag)
Klebe/Neugebauer, Crowdsourcing: Für eine Handvoll Dollar oder Workers of the crowd unite? AuR (= Arbeit und Recht) 2014 S. 4 – 7 (Bund-Verlag)
Müller-Glöge/Preis/Schmidt (Hrsg.), Erfurter Kommentar zum Arbeitsrecht, 19. Aufl.
München (Beck-Verlag) 2019, 2938 S.
Pfromm, Solidarische Lohnpolitik, Köln (Bund-Verlag) 1978, 135 S.
Schulten, Solidarische Lohnpolitik in Europa, WSI- Diskussionspapier Nr. 92, Düsseldorf 2001 (abrufbar unter: HTTP://www.boeckler.de).
Schwemmle/Wedde, Digitale Arbeit in Deutschland. Potentiale und Problemlagen, Bonn/Berlin 2012 (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung), 145 S.
Wilkinson/Pickett, The Spirit Level. Why Equality is Better for Everyone, London (Penguin) 2010, 375 p.
37 LA INTRODUCCIÓN DE FLEXIBILIDAD EN LA FIJACIÓN DE LAS CONDICIONES DE TRABAJO MEDIANTE CONVENIO COLECTIVO
THE INTRODUCTION OF FLEXIBILITY IN THE SETTING OF WORKING CONDITIONS THROUGH COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT
Fernando Fita Ortega1
RESUMEN: Las reformas introducidas por la Ley 35/2010 de 17 de septiembre y el RDL 3/2012 de 10 de febrero en los reglamentos que rigen la negociación colectiva sobre las condiciones de trabajo y la protección de la Seguridad Social están más cerca de la idea de la desregulación que flexibilidad de las relaciones laborales. El trabajo y la orientación de la Unión Europea, que, bajo el disfraz de "soft law", incluso modifica urgentemente la Carta de los Estados miembros de la Unión, como el Libro Verde, utilizando ideas de "modernización de la legislación laboral" para enfrentar los desafíos del siglo XXI, ignorando por completo su naturaleza colectiva. El objetivo es desregular la "desjuridificación" de las relaciones laborales, lo que daría como resultado la eliminación del nivel de protección de los trabajadores y el retorno a la autorregulación del mercado laboral, el libre poder comercial sobre el trabajo, es decir, el libertad de contratación, libertad para establecer condiciones de trabajo y libertad para rescindir el contrato de trabajo.
PALABRAS CLAVE: Flexibilidad. Desregulación. Convenio colectivo. Desjuridificación.
SUMARIO: 1. Las exigências de flexibilidad interna de lãs empresas. 2. Flexibilidad y desregulación em la búsqueda de la adaptabilidad de la normativa laboral a las empresas 3. Las últimas reformas de la negociación colectiva: ¿flexibilidad o desregulación? 4. Conclusiones.
ABSTRACT: The reforms introduced by Law 35/2010 of September 17 and RDL 3/2012 of February 10 in the regulations governing collective bargaining on working conditions and the protection of Social Security are closer to the idea of deregulation that flexibility of labor relations. The work and guidance of the European Union, which, under the guise of "soft law", even urgently modifies the Charter of the Member States of the Union, such as the Green Book, using ideas of "modernization of labor legislation" to face the challenges of the 21st century, completely ignoring its collective nature. The objective is to deregulate the "dejuridification" of labor relations, which would result in the elimination of the level of protection of workers and the return to self-regulation of the labor market, free commercial power over labor, that is freedom of hiring, freedom to establish working conditions and freedom to terminate the employment contract.
KEYWORDS: Flexibility. Desregulation. Collective agreement. Dejuridification.
SUMMARY: 1. The requirements for internal flexibility of companies. 2. Flexibility and deregulation in the search for the adaptability of labor regulations to companies 3. The latest reforms of collective bargaining:
flexibility or deregulation? 4. Conclusions.
1 LAS EXIGENCIAS DE FLEXIBILIDAD INTERNA DE LAS EMPRESAS
En el debate sobre la necesidad de potenciar la flexibilidad en la regulación de las relaciones laborales, se ha venido propugnando la potenciación de la flexibilidad interna
Artigo recebido em 14/06/2019.
Artigo aprovado em 18/07/2019.
1 Profesor T.U. de la Universidad de Valencia (E.G.).
38 frente a la externa, dado que esta última supone un ajuste más traumático para los trabajadores afectados por las medidas flexibilizadoras, como sucede con los instrumentos de flexibilidad de salida; o, como en el caso de la flexibilización de entrada, porque ésta contribuye a perpetuar un mercado de trabajo caracterizado por una excesiva rotación de la mano de obra, así como por su dualización (trabajadores de reciente ingreso con contratos temporales frente a trabajadores con contratos indefinidos).
De este modo, la flexibilidad interna se nos viene presentando como el instrumento idóneo para alcanzar la adaptabilidad de las condiciones laborales a la situación de la empresa en la que las mismas deben ser aplicadas. Así lo destacaba, entre otros, el Dictamen del Comité Económico y Social Europeo sobre “La flexiguridad”2, y es la línea seguida por el legislador en las últimas reformas laborales producidas en nuestro país a partir de la crisis de 2008, en las que los distintos Reales Decretos-ley3 inciden en la necesidad de avanzar en la introducción de instrumentos de flexibilidad interna en las empresas, con objeto de lograr la adaptación de las condiciones de trabajo a las circunstancias de la producción, como alternativa positiva frente a mecanismos de flexibilidad externa. En este sentido, cabe referirse al RDL 3/2012, de 10 de febrero, en cuya Exposición de Motivos se subraya que, dentro del objetivo general perseguido de “flexiseguridad”, una de las líneas reformadoras seguidas se ha dirigido a incentivar la flexibilidad interna de la empresa “como medida alternativa a la destrucción de empleo”.
Conviene, en todo caso, recordar, que la necesidad de conseguir una norma laboral que facilite instrumentos para su adaptación a las condiciones de productividad y competitividad de las empresas, no constituye una exigencia novedosa, siendo ésta la principal idea fuerza de las reformas introducidas en el ordenamiento laboral español en el año 1994.
2 FLEXIBILIDAD Y DESREGULACIÓN EN LA BÚSQUEDA DE LA