By Wang Weijin, Institute of Public Administration and Human Resources, DRC & Wang Tianyu, Institute of Law, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Research Report, No.28, 2021, (Total 6093) 2021-3-2

Abstract: Currently, platform-based economy has become an important new economic form in China, and platform-based employment has accordingly become a major new format for creating job opportunities. It needs to be noted that workers in typical platform-based businesses have long working hours with high labor intensity, the development of social security for casual workers in platform businesses lags behind, and the labor protection for platform workers is insufficient. The prevailing position of platform economy in labor relations and the sluggish legal protection for platform workers are the important causes leading to the inadequate labor protection of platform employment. For platform employment, we need to follow the principal rule and in line with the guideline of promoting healthy development, we need to move from the stance of pure encouragement to active guidance so as to achieve the combination of economic benefits with social benefits. The priority issue is to improve the labor laws and regulations in the digital era, establish the collective consultation mechanism to set the labor benchmark, standardize the power of platforms, enhance the applicability and enforcement of relevant laws and regulations, explore a new occupational injury protection system and protect the rights and interests of platform workers in a bid to build a healthy and harmonious labor relationship between related platforms and the workers.

Keywords: platform-based employment, labor law, labor protection, labor relationship, occupational injury protection