LEGAL STATUS OF PLATFORM WORKERS IN RUSSIA: RIGHT ON UNEMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL ASSISTANCE

Abstract

Purposes: Russian Federation as many other States experience the growth of the “gig economy”. The number of people working via platforms grows with every year. As a result, it brings up a new form of employment. Consequently, national law and social security systems have to adapt to new challenges in order to provide from one hand, efficient regulation of such relations, from another hand – to protect the rights of crowd-workers. Methodology: Russian legislators introduced in 2013 the new concept of “distance work”, which partially covers platform workers. Since late 2019 new regulations concerning non-registered self-employed persons will come into force. Nonetheless, the discussion on the place of crowd-workers remains to be open within practitioners and scholars and still shows the uncertainty. Result: In this paper, we tried to determine the legal status of platform workers and identify their place within the system of Labour and Social Security Law with a detailed focus on access to Unemployment Benefit and Social Assistance. Implications/Applications: As a general rule, digital platforms do not impose concrete requirements for the crowd-worker, for instance as the obligation of having registered status as individual entrepreneurship. In this case, any physical person showing the will to work can register with a platform and provide services. Novelty/Originality: We will try to give the legal definition and to find out the recognition of so-called Platform Workers within the national Labour Law. After the research will be focused on a social cluster: the right of Platform Workers to access to Unemployment Benefit and Social Assistance.