Centring Microworkers' Needs in EU Platform Regulation

How can centring microworkers' needs change our understanding of platform work regulation? While EU member states are currently implementing the Platform Work Directive (PWD), the consequences of this regulation for platform workers broadly, and for microworkers specifically, remain unclear. In particular, the much-discussed article on the employment status will likely be difficult to apply to microworkers within the subordination paradigm (Aloisi et al., 2023). Then, while there are reasons to expect positive change for microworkers regarding algorithmic management and transparency, the prospects of improving their pay, contracts, health and safety are much bleaker.

While prior research has made crucial advances in our understanding of (1) the working conditions of microworkers (e.g., Casilli, 2025) and (2) the theoretical potential and limits of the PWD directive (e.g., Adams-Prassl et al., 2025), there has been little work to bring these two strands together empirically. With this project, we plan to do exactly that: we take a bottom-up approach to understanding the policy needs of microworkers. Hence, we address the question of how microworkers within the EU describe their policy needs, rooted in their everyday experiences and challenges of working on platforms, and their ideas of what should change to realise decent working conditions.

We will conduct around 30 interviews with income-dependent microworkers in the EU. These interviews have two main parts: we first ask microworkers about their needs and problems inductively, and after that, we draw on the PWD to guide the conversation. Hence, we will ask microworkers about their experiences (and needs) regarding their employment status, algorithmic management and human intervention, transparency, health, and representation. Throughout the study, we focus on income-dependent microworkers whose daily lives will be most affected by policy change.

Given that the organisation and regulation of microwork are embedded in both global companies and local labour markets and welfare systems, we focus on three EU countries (Germany, Italy, and Romania) with different welfare systems, considering differences and similarities in workers' needs. Through the analyses, we then want to foreground how local labour market conditions also shape the policy needs. We are currently recruiting interviewees and will be able to present results at INDL 9. With the interviews, we ultimately want to understand what we may be missing in the regulation of microwork and what our gaze gets directed to when centering workers' needs.