Inside and outside the gig context, the misclassification of workers is one of the most heavily discussed areas of employment law. In the United States, there is a stark distinction between relatively unprotected independent contractors and employees who receive a range of protections and benefits at work. This disparity also exists in many other common law contexts as well as in several civil law jurisdictions, albeit with some terminological and conceptual differences. The articles in this category reflect the breadth of this scholarship by considering a range of misclassification issues across companies and jurisdictions.

Bibliographic Entries

Aloisi, Antonio. “Commoditized Workers: Case Study Research on Labor Law Issues Arising from a Set of ‘On Demand/Gig Economy’ Platforms,” (2015-2016).  Read Here

Cherry, Miriam A. “Beyond Misclassification: The Digital Transformation of Work.” Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal 37, no. 3 (2015–2016): 577–602. Read Here

Cherry, Miriam A. and Antonio Aloisi. “‘Dependent Contractors’ in the Gig Economy: A Comparative Approach.” American University Law Review 66 (2017): 635–689. Read Here

Cherry, Miriam A. “Working for (Virtually) Minimum Wage: Applying the Fair Labor Standards Act in Cyberspace.” Alabama Law Review 60, no. 5 (2009): 1077–1110. Read Here

Corujo, Borja Suárez. “The Sharing Economy: The Emerging Debate in Spain.” Spanish Labour Law and Employment Relations Journal 6 (2017): 30-41. Read Here

Cunningham-Parmeter, Keith. “From Amazon to Uber: Defining Employment in the Modern Economy.” Boston University Law Review 96 (2016): 1673–1728. Read Here

Das Acevedo, Deepa. “Regulating Employment Relationships in the Sharing Economy.” Employee Rights & Employment Policy Journal 20 (2016): 1–35. Read Here

Das Acevedo, Deepa. “Unbundling Freedom in the Sharing Economy.” Southern California Law Review 91 (2018): 793-838. Read Here

Davidov, Guy. “The Status of Uber Drivers: A Purposive Approach.” Spanish Labour Law and Employment Relations Journal 6 (2017): 6-15. Read Here

De Stefano, Valerio and Antonio Aloisi. “Employment and Working Conditions of Selected Types of Platform Work. National Context Analysis: Italy.” European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (2018): 1-33. Read Here

De Stefano, Valerio and Antonio Aloisi. “European Legal Framework for ‘Digital Labour Platforms.’” Joint Research Centre, European Commission (2018): 1-66. Read Here

De Stefano, Valerio. “The Rise of the ‘Just-in-Time Workforce’: On-Demand Work, Crowdwork, and Labor Protection in the ‘Gig-Economy.’” Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal 37, no. 3 (2015–2016): 471–504. Read Here

Dubal, V.B. “Wage Slave or Entrepreneur?: Contesting the Dualism of Legal Worker Identities.” California Law Review 105 (2017): 65–124. Read Here

Dubal, V.B. “Winning the Battle, Losing the War?: Assessing the Impact of Misclassification Litigation on Workers in the Gig Economy.” Wisconsin Law Review (2017): 739-802. Read Here

Felstiner, Alek. “Working the Crowd: Employment and Labor Law in the Crowdsourcing Industry.” Berkeley Journal of Employment & Labor Law 32, no. 1 (2011): 143–203. Read Here

Fitzgerald, Chelsea. “Note: When Tech Startups Outgrow the 1099 Model: Moving Firms Out of the Kiddie Pool.” Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law 18 (2016): 629–652. Read Here

Freedland, Mark and Jeremias Prassl. “Employees, Workers and the ‘Sharing Economy’ Changing Practices and Changing Concepts in the United Kingdom.” Spanish Labour Law and Employment Relations Journal 6 (2017): 16-29. Read Here

Griffith, Kati L. “The Fair Labor Standards Act at 80: Everything Old is New Again.” Cornell Law Review 170, No. 3 (2019). Read Here

Grossman and Woyke, “Serving Workers in the Gig Economy.” 

Harris, Seth D. and Alan B. Krueger. “A Proposal for Modernizing Labor Laws for Twenty-First-Century Work: The ‘Independent Worker.’” Discussion Paper 2015–10. The Hamilton Project, December 2015. Read Here

Kunsman, Chad G. “Ride-Sharing-Company Drivers: Employees or Independent Contractors?” Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 26 (2016): 137–165. Read Here

Lobel, “The Gig Economy & The Future of Employment and Labor Law,” (2017). Read Here

Malin, Martin. “Exploring the Law of Franchising as an Alternative Model for Regulating the Gig Relationship.” Prepared for Third Biennial Meeting, Labor Law Research Network, Toronto, Ontario Canada, June 27, 2017.

Malin, Martin H. “Protecting Platform Workers in the Gig Economy: Look to the FTC.” Indiana Law Review 51 (2018): 377-411. Read Here

Means, Benjamin, and Joseph A. Seiner. “Navigating the Uber Economy.” UC Davis Law Review 49 (2016): 1511–1546. Read Here

Nadler, Michael L. “Independent Employees: A New Category of Workers for the Gig Economy.” North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology 19, no. 3 (2018): 443–496. Read Here

Oei, Shu-Yi. “The Trouble with Gig Talk: Choice of Narrative and the Worker Classification Fights.” Law and Contemporary Problems 81 (2018): 107-136. Read Here

Prassl, Jeremias and Martin Risak. “Uber, Taskrabbit, and Co.: Platforms as Employers – Rethinking the Legal Analysis of Crowdwork.” Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal 37 (2016): 619-652. Read Here

Rogers, Brishen. “Employment Rights in the Platform Economy: Getting Back to Basics.” Harvard Law & Policy Review 10 (2016): 479-520. Read Here

Secunda, Paul. “Uber Retirement.” University of Chicago Legal Forum (2017): 435-459. Read Here

Spitko, E. Gary. “A Structural-Purposive Interpretation of ‘Employment’ in the Platform Economy.” Florida Law Review 70 (2018): 409-446. Read Here

Sprague, Robert. “Using the ABC Test to Classify Workers: End of the Platform-Based Business Model or Status Quo Ante?” William & Mary Business Law Review 11 (2020, Forthcoming). Read Here

Tomassetti, Julia. “Digital Platform Work as Interactive Service Work.” Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal 22 (2018): 1-57. Read Here

Tomassetti, Julia. “From Hierarchies to Markets: FedEx Drivers and the Work Contract as Institutional Marker.” Lewis & Clark Law Review 19 (2015): 1083-1150. Read Here

Tomassetti, Julia. “The Contracting/Producing Ambiguity and the Collapse of the Means/Ends Distinction in Employment.” South Carolina Law Review 66 (2014): 315-399. Read Here

Zou, Mimi. “The Regulatory Challenges of ‘Uberization’ in China: Classifying Ride-hailing Drivers.” International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations (2017): 269-294. Read Here