On demand work as a legal framework to understand the gig economy

This chapter aims to demonstrate the usefulness to scholars, practitioners and policy-makers of characterising gig work as part of a wider category of 'on demand work'. Here, as elsewhere, I understand 'on demand work' or 'work on demand' broadly as comprising different forms of contractual and organisational arrangement that are each designed to keep the worker hungry for the next shift, and so – in effect – 'on call', ready and willing to work whenever the employer requires it, often at short notice. My main argument is that characterising gig work as an example of on demand work highlights several matters of importance: the weakness of the platforms' claims to novelty and uniqueness when it comes to gig work, and the applicability of an existing legal framework and lines of legal reasoning, which recognise gig work as wage work, rather than self-employment, and gig workers as the bearers of employment rights.