The Chinese Approach to Platform Work – Current State of Affairs and Possible Further Developments in the Labor Law of the PRC

Platform work has recently received considerable attention in scholarship. In this context, the paper addresses the following questions, much-debated in Chinese academia: 1) How is the legal nature of platform work defined and interpreted in China? 2) How are employees differentiated from self-employed workers and how is the existence of a labor relationship determined in the context of platform work? 3) What are the possible avenues for the Chinese ‘innovative legislation’ (创新立法; chuàngxīn lìfǎ) , expected to emerge in near future, to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of platform workers? The paper is organized in the following manner. After this introduction (Part 1), Part 2 offers a look at platform work within the broader context of sharing economy in the PRC. Parts 3 and 4 address the two-tier division of workforce in China, based on the Labor Contract Law of 1994, and the issues arising from the fact that the status of platform workers is difficult to fit into this dichotomous legal division: they are either recognized as employees with full social rights, or viewed as self-employed and therefore left outside the bounds of such protection. An overview of ongoing debates among Chinese labor law experts on the subject is provided. In Part 5, the latest developments in China are discussed in terms of safeguarding the rights and interest of platform workers, and further possible evolution of legislation is addressed. At the end, a brief Part 6 outlines conclusions