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29 Maastricht J. Eur. & Comp. L. 3 (2022)

handle is hein.journals/maastje29 and id is 1 raw text is: Editorial Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law Towards better working 2022, Vol. 29(I) 3-8 © The Author(s) 2022 conditions for persons rsgdJ Article reuse guidelnes: performing services through Dspu.curn-e DOI: 10.1 177/1023263X221085234 digital labour platform s maastrichtjournal.sagepub.com *SAGE Caroline Cauffman* Online platforms created new ways for people to make a living. Not only did they make it easier for small producers and resellers to find potential clients via online marketplaces; they also created online markets for the provision of services. The example that usually comes to mind when thinking of this latter type of online platforms is Uber, but there is an enormous number of such platforms, and they are active in very different fields: passenger transport, food delivery, trans- lation, programming, proofreading, web design, etc. About 500 labour platforms appear to be active in the EU.1 These platforms generally present themselves as mere online intermediaries, offering a place where supply and demand for services can meet. They also stress the freedom of the service pro- vider to organize its own work, to work when, where and as many hours as desired. In their view, this implies that the persons providing services via their platform are self-employed and not employees. Several studies indicated that 9 out 10 platforms classify their workers as self- employed.2 Another study found that most of these workers 'are genuinely autonomous in their work and can use platform work as a way to develop their entrepreneurial activities'.3 1. Commission Staff Working Document Impact Assessment Report, Accompanying the document Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council to improve the working conditions in platform work in the European Union, SWD(2021) 396 final/2, p. 9; Commission Staff Working Document, Executive Summary of the Impact Assessment Report Accompanying the document Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on improving working conditions in platform work, SWD(2021) 397 final, p. 3. 2. Eurofound, Exploring Self-employment in the European Union (Publications Office of the European Union, 2017), p. 10; W. De Groen et al., Digital Labour Platforms in the EU: Mapping and Business Models (2021). 3. According to the Commission Staff Working Document, SWD(2021) 397 final, p. 2: 'There are around 28 million people who are estimated to work through platforms in the EU. 22.5 million of these people are believed to be correctly *Faculty of Law, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands, and University of Hasselt, Hasselt, Belgium Corresponding author: Caroline Cauffman, Faculty of Law, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands, and University of Hasselt, Hasselt, Belgium. Email: caroline.cauffman@maastrichtuniversity.n