Cosa è successo nel mercato del lavoro? Piattaforme digitali e politiche pubbliche

This paper looks at the breakdown of the normative model of employment that underpinned the mid-twentieth-century welfare state. The focus of the chapter is the slow, but continuous, dismantling of labor protections that happened in the last decades which has played a crucial role in facilitating the rise of digital platforms. Thus, while on one hand this can be related to the limits that the traditional labor protections had, especially in including women, migrants, and other usually considered more “marginal” workers; on the other it is a product of the new global division of labor and of the way in which technologies have been used to outsource and manage remote working. These developments are being expanded by the increasing “platformization” of the economy that is spreading across sectors digital management and new forms of task-based work directly controlled by algorithms. Despite the birth of new union forms, capable of intercepting the demands and defending the interests of gig workers, the paper concludes by highlighting how these achievements, despite their relevance, are not a definitive solution, but it is necessary to aim for a new set of universal workers’ rights.