A Crisis Hiding in Plain Sight When 14-year-old Cristian should be in a classroom learning, he’s swinging a hammer on a construction site. Fifteen-year-old Carolina spends her nights in a factory, stuffing Cheerios into yellow cartons in ten-second intervals. Thirteen-year-old Wander searches for day-labor jobs before dawn breaks. These are not isolated stories from America’s…
Practice and academic insights into artificial intelligence in work Accept it: artificial intelligence is changing how we work, and we must adapt to it. This was the tenor of the discussion amongst members of a panel of legal practitioners and law academics in Dublin in May 2025. This post summarises the discussion amongst this panel….
What is the impact of artificial intelligence on workers’ rights? “AttivIAmoci: inclusione digitale e sviluppo tecnologico rispettoso dei diritti” explores this question and others. It is available on Spotify, and is the work of researchers at the Marco Biagi Foundation and colleagues at UNIMORE This Italian language podcast is the result of a collaborative effort…
AI Act and Prevention Regulations Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act) subjects the entire discipline of the employment relationship to a stress-test, forcing the interpreter to question the compliance capacity of the national rules that preside over multiple regulatory spheres. Of course, there is no shortage of reflections on the impact of the new European regulations…
War simultaneously reveals existing societal inequalities, vulnerabilities, and fragility but also provides a window for transformative change. The Ukrainian employment market faces workforce shortages driven by factors of emigration and mobilization. Amidst these challenges, diversity and inclusion emerge as potential solutions to address those shortages.This blog will explore how various stakeholders from both the private…
Surface-Level Compliance vs. Meeting The Deeper Purpose The Platform Work Directive has finally entered into force, and with it an obligation for Member States to establish an effective rebuttable presumption of employment for service providers in the platform economy. The Directive itself does not clearly determine what the standard of protection that Member States must…
Introduction On February 2, 2025, a significant milestone was reached in protecting workers’ fundamental rights as Chapter I [General Provisions] and Chapter II [Prohibited Practices] of the AI Act became applicable.[1] Two days later, on February 4, 2025, the European Commission approved the draft non-binding guidelines on the practical implementation of the prohibited AI practices…
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)[1] is the principal law protecting the labor rights of private-sector employees in the United States. While the second Trump administration’s attack on workers is multi-faceted,[2] private-sector workers are by far the largest segment of the work force at risk.[3] Unfortunately, because of the administrative structure of the NLRA, the…
On 11 March 2024, the European co-legislators approved a Directive on improving working conditions in platform work—the ‘Platform Work Directive’ (PWD).[1] It targets two challenges in digital labour platforms: false self-employment (Chapter II) and algorithmic management (Chapter III). Additionally, it increases transparency, especially for Member States (Chapters IV–V).[2] Some analysts called the final text ‘watered…
Comment on CJEU judgment of December 19, 2024 – Case C-531/23 Loredas ECLI:EU:C:2024:1050 In many jurisdictions, domestic workers are still excluded from key areas of labour and social security law. Where ILO Domestic Workers Convention 189 (that was brought about by an international movement of domestic workers[1]) established the principle of equal treatment for domestic…
