Work

Balancing Competition and Worker Protection: The EU’s Platform Work Package in a Social Market Economy

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: The European Union’s commitment to a social market economy requires balancing competition and social protection. This tension is particularly evident for digital labour platforms, where self-employed workers often find themselves in a precarious position. Lacking traditional labour protections, they also face restrictions under competition law when organising collectively. The EU’s Platform Work Package represents an effort to close this gap. It includes the reclassification of false self-employed workers and the introduction of collective bargaining exemptions for some genuine self-employed individuals. This shift represents a partial departure from the traditional binary distinction between workers and undertakings, acknowledging the evolving nature of work relationships in the platform economy. While these measures attempt to strengthen worker protections, the final form reflects the EU’s structural limitations in harmonising social policy across member states. This article evaluates whether these measures are sufficient in addressing the power imbalance between workers and platforms. It argues that, for the EU to fully realise its commitment to a social market economy, competition law should be utilised more proactively—not just to exempt certain workers from restrictions, but to directly regulate platform dominance and mitigate dependency relationships.

Source: Utrecht Law Review

DOI: 10.36633/ulr.1132

Author: Gabriël van Rosmalen

Institution: Utrecht University

Language: English

Topic: Legal and Labor Studies

Subfield: Industrial relations

Field: Business, Management and Accounting

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Decent work and economic growth, Peace, justice, and strong institutions, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: diamond

Funder: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek