WORKER COOPERATIVES IN THE PLATFORM ECONOMY

Abstract

The relevance acquired by the virtual environment as a meeting point between job seekers and providers of employment is a polymorphous phenomenon of diverse aetiology. Its origin lies in the technological evolution that has made it possible to articulate digital platforms, but its success depended, to a large extent, on an economic situation characterised by the disappearance of companies and the consequent scarcity of jobs. The economic depression that began in 2008 gave an unusual boost to those digital platforms that, instead of channelling the exchange of services between peers, have hosted offers of subordinate employment that often sought to escape from labour discipline. The need to turn to this new environment in search of a job that did not exist in the traditional labour market soon transformed a sphere originally conceived for collaboration between individuals into an environment where initiatives driven by the profit motive prevailed, with hardly any legal restrictions. The collaborative economy is thus distinguished as part of a platform economy where other business models also find a place. Despite the predatory contracting that has proliferated in the platform economy, it is important not to miss the opportunities that the legal system offers us to make the most of a technological base whose characteristics fit well with the cooperative paradigm. Free membership through open and accessible digital environments; democratic management through the design and application of algorithms by the members themselves; and the autonomy offered by the registration of any acts through distributed and self-managed systems based on the blockchain are three key aspects which allow us to predict a prosperous future for the cooperatives within the so-called “platform economy”. Achieving them, however, requires addressing the difficult distinction between “collaborative platforms”, “platform cooperativism” and the simple cover-up of bogus self-employment. A priori, the worker cooperative could be a vehicle for an initiative that provides jobs for its members in accordance with cooperative principles. Although the members’ relationship with it is of a corporate nature, article 14 of Royal Legislative Decree 8/2015 of 30 October, which approves the revised text of the General Social Security Act, allows cooperatives to opt in their articles of association to assimilate their worker-members to employees and, therefore, to include them in the General Social Security Scheme; or to include them in the Special Scheme for Self-Employed Workers. The fact that the co-operative offers this possibility, which does not exist in capitalist companies, has attracted the attention of those who wish to use it in a way that is spurious to the inspiring principles of the cooperative movement. This happens when a cooperative recruits worker-members to put them at the disposal of other companies without providing them with organisational, material, financial or management structures that allow and facilitate the most efficient provision of self-employment. An illegal transfer is thus consummated, all the more serious when it is carried out under the protection of an entity belonging to the social economy, whose activity is presumed not only to be in accordance with the law, but even beneficial for its members and for the community that hosts it. Or when, without engaging in the illegal lending of workers, they camouflage the pure and simple provision of self-employed work by their members under the umbrella of an entity through which they invoice their services. Reference is made to digital invoicing cooperatives, dedicated to recruiting professionals to whom they offer a tailor-made tax and social security regime. The risk of disguising an illegal transfer of workers under the cooperative form or of making the cooperative a mere intermediary entity for invoicing purposes means that the existence of a real cooperative must be established, a task that has so far been undertaken by case law. It is therefore particularly important to accredit the activity actually carried out by the cooperative in order to ascertain that this demonstrates the effective creation and organisation of mechanisms for internal action and relations with clients which result in the provision of common services, generating and promoting business management formulas, whether in the purely material sphere, advice, cost reduction, attracting clients, or any other type which results in the better development of the provision of services to its members. Since art. 7 of the ILO Recommendation no. 193 (2002) on the promotion of cooperatives warns the signatories of the need to “ensure that cooperatives cannot be created or used to evade labour legislation”, it is essential to ensure that its constitution “does not serve to establish disguised employment relationships”. This purpose can only be achieved by fighting “against pseudo-cooperatives, which violate workers’ rights”. In this regard, it is considered appropriate, firstly, to elucidate the role that the worker cooperative is called upon to play in the so-called “platform economy”, differentiating it from initiatives motivated by an altruistic purpose, but also from those that conceal real salaried work. And, secondly, to propose possible methods to prevent it from being used to subvert the principles of the social economy. This will be helped by the legal reform by virtue of which the activity of persons providing paid services consisting of the delivery or distribution of any consumer product or commodity, by employers who exercise the entrepreneurial powers of organisation, direction and control directly, indirectly or implicitly, by means of algorithmic management of the service or working conditions, through a digital platform. Finally, various measures are proposed to promote the development of platform cooperativism as an alternative way of benefiting not only economically but also socially from the platform economy. Specifically, it stresses the need to adopt measures to provide financial support and technical advice to those who dare to set up a worker cooperative in this digital ecosystem. However, insofar as their development requires the acquisition of legal and economic knowledge about the social economy, in general, and about the cooperativism, in particular, it is essential to strengthen the role that educational institutions are called upon to play in promoting them. In this way, graduates will have the necessary tools to successfully undertake a cooperative project in a context once again marked by the economic decline resulting from the current pandemic.