New technologies, “intermittent work” and adequate pay under article 36 of the Constitution

This paper addresses the issue of how intermittent work performances - now increasingly enabled by new technologies - affect remuneration, and how such work contributes to in-work poverty. The analysis takes platform-based work as a model, considering it a prototype of a productive organisation relying on intermittent performances. It begins by examining whether there are legal mechanisms that allow for periods of inactivity between tasks to be taken into account when calculating remuneration. This part of the analysis first focuses on hetero-organised work, with reference to both the rules established by law under Article 2, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree 81/2015, and the provisions of national collective labour agreements under Article 2, paragraph 2, of the same Decree. It then turns to the concept of intermittent subordinate employment as regulated by Articles 13 et seq. of Legislative Decree 81/2015. The paper concludes that the current legal framework is inadequate to ensure that workers performing intermittent tasks receive remuneration that is nonetheless adequate under Article 36 of the Constitution, and puts forward several corrective proposals.