The platforming of subordinated work and the gray zone between autonomy and subordination

Abstract

With the development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), the phenomenon of uberization or platforming was implemented in Brazil through business models and contractual relationships called “sharing economies”, where legal entities call themselves application companies. They house workers on their electronic platforms, whom they call self-employed. This paper aims to investigate the real situation of these workers in the digital age: are they really self-employed workers, as the application companies claim? Or are they workers housed by the Consolidation of Labor Laws - CLT? Do digital platforms facilitate genuine entrepreneurship or are their relationships with service providers more hierarchical to the point of characterizing employment relationships? Another point of investigation: can “autonomous” service providers receive disciplinary measures from application platforms without having a job relationship? Does the temporary blocking of workers access to the platform or the absence of freedom to define their own prices for the services rendered remove them from the self-employed workers? The advancement in technology poses innovative questions and demands answers from lawyers.