The IRSDACE project - Industrial Relations and Social Dialogue in the Age of Collaborative Economy - is funded by the Directorate-General for Employment (DG EMPL) of the European Commission and aims to identify how traditional players in the labour market, e.g. trade unions, employers' associations, member states and the EU, experience and respond to the collaborative economy. IRSDACE had five main tasks: (1) conceptualisation of platform work, its place in the labour market, employment policy and industrial relations; (2) analysis of discourse on platform economy among established industrial
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The IRSDACE project - Industrial Relations and Social Dialogue in the Age of Collaborative Economy - is funded by the Directorate-General for Employment (DG EMPL) of the European Commission and aims to identify how traditional players in the labour market, e.g. trade unions, employers' associations, member states and the EU, experience and respond to the collaborative economy. IRSDACE had five main tasks: (1) conceptualisation of platform work, its place in the labour market, employment policy and industrial relations; (2) analysis of discourse on platform economy among established industrial relations actors; (3) assessment of the implications of workers' experience with the platform economy for industrial relations and social dialogue; (4) comparative analysis of national experiences; and (5) analysis of how EU-level employment policy and the industrial relations agenda should respond to the emergence of work in the platform economy. In this study, 'platform economy' refers to the part of the economy composed of digital platforms enabling users to share, lend, rent, or purchase goods and services. Some examples of platforms connecting service providers to customers are Uber, Airbnb, Foodora, Mechanical Turk or TaskRabbit.
This report presents the results of the Danish part of the IRSDACE project. The study aimed to identify how traditional players on the labour market (trade unions, employers' associations, government) experience and respond to the collaborative economy, as well as explore how new players perceive the collaborative economy and act in it (platforms, platform workers/providers). Methodologically, the project includes desk research, interviews and focus groups. All empirical data was collected in 2017-2018 with a focus on three industries in the private service sector: transport, hotels and restaurants and cleaning. The report is structured in six chapters. The introductory chapter presents the current legal status of platform workers in Denmark, five significant platform cases, the current frame work for social dialogue in the collaborative economy, debates in Parliament and court cases as well as significant tripartite and unilateral initiatives from the social partners. Chapter two describes the methods used in the empirical part of the study as well as our strategy of analysis. Chapter three presents our analysis of interviews with social partners at national/sector level, whereas chapter four presents our analysis of the new actors (platforms and platform workers) at company level. Chapter five is a short analysis comparing our analysis at national/sector level and at company level including a discussion of the overall results. The conclusion in chapter six summarises our findings and discusses possible avenues for the further development. Interview guides and overview of interviews and desk research can be found in the appendix.
Edited excerpts from publication and Centre for European Policy Studies website.
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