FLEXIBILITY AND TECHNOLOGY: PLATFORM WORK AND SMART WORKING

The course "Flexibility and technologies: platform work and smart work" is part of the Minor "Economics and work of digital innovation" and it allows the student to acquire an overview of the effects produced by Industry 4.0 on the labor market.
The course in particular intends to focus the attention on the massive use of digital platforms in the era of the gig-economy in Italy and in the world, both to carry out the work activity directly online, on the platform, and to recruit (and manage) workforce in a virtual labor market for the performance of a service in the real economy (as in the case of the famous transport company Uber or Foodora's riders).
In particular, we will analyse the new ways of performing the work made possible by the dematerialization of the concept of "workspace" (the so-called "agile work" or “smart working”) and the work on platform and via platform, also in a comparative perspective (referring to countries such as France, Great Britain and the United States). At the end of the course, the student will have acquired an in-depth knowledge of the dynamics of Industry 4.0 with specific reference to employment relationships, to contractual conditions, to the implementation of platform work within companies, in the public as well as in the private sector.

1. KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
- Knowledge of the consequences of digitalisation in the world of work
- Knowledge of the characteristics and regulatory requirements of smart work and platform work
- Knowledge of the existing problems regarding the contractual qualification of gig-workers


2. ABILITY OF ANALYSIS
- Ability to analyze the use, the potentials and the deficits of virtual platforms, both on the side of the entrepreneur and on the side of the worker
- Ability to analysis in a comparative perspective different national system
- Ability to read and analyze a sentence


3. JUDGMENT CAPACITY
- Ability to assess the risks and the opportunities of work through and on the platform
- Ability to assess the risks and possible ways of using and implementing smart-working
- Ability to judge the use (past and prospective) of smart-working in the pandemic era


4. LEARNING SKILLS
- Ability to learn the mechanisms underlying the functioning of digital platforms
- Ability to learn the potential of smart-work
- Ability to learn legislative and jurisprudential differences in different national contexts

No specific prerequisite or condition is required to attend this course.

1. Industry 4.0 and Gig-economy: the economy of little tasks
2. Crowdsourcing: work via platform. The Uber case.
3. Crowdworking: platform work. The Amazon Mechanical Turk case
4. The case of FOODORA riders and recent judgments on the rider’s contractual qualification
5. “Agile work” or “smart-working”: the Italian legislation
6. Teleworking and smart-working: a comparison
7. The right to disconnect in Italy and abroad
8. A cross-border look on the subject of work on the platform, via platform and on smart working: the comparison with other systems (France and UK).
9. Smart working in times of a Covid-19 pandemic
10. Criticalities and opportunities of work in industry 4.0

Slides, working papers and articles in reviews will be uploaded in the Moodle page of the course

The exam will be an oral test

Classes, cases, working group

oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Human capital, health, education" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development