etui.podcast

The Counter-app series explores how app-based workers can counter the power of their algorithmic bosses. Each episode is based on cutting-edge research by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) on platform work and how workers are resisting digitised exploitation.In the final episode of this mini-series, journalist and researcher Ben Wray takes a deep-dive into the EU's recent Platform Work Directive, which Member States must transpose into their national legal regimes by December 2026.The episode is based on 'The Platform Work Directive: Trade union guide to transposition', the fourth and final report of the ETUC's Fair Platforms project, a series of manuals on work in the platform economy. Interested in hearing other 'voices on the world of work'? Take a look back at previous seasons of etui.podcast.AcknowledgementsThanks to Martin Willems, Daniel Cruz and Silvia Rainone for their contributions to this episode. Credits GeenStijl (2023). 'Uber Files: "Ruthless greed and state failure", testifies whistleblower Mark MacGann'. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLjBzIgqVvk Timestamps00:00 to 01:32: Introduction 1:33 to 04:52: Part 1 - The legal presumption of employment 04:53 to 08:46: Part 2 - Procedural laws 08:47 to 12:19: Part 3 - Intermediaries 12:20 to 14:47: Part 4 - Algorithmic management 14:48 to 20:24: Part 5 - Enforcement 20:25 to 20:54: Outro

STRUCTUREIntroduction: 00:00 to 00:5400:55 to 2:32: Part 1: What is Uberisation?02:33 to 07:25: Part 2: What makes an industry vulnerable to Uberisation?07:26 to 09:58: Part 3: 5 industries vulnerable to Uberisation - 1) Education09:59 to 11:58: 2) Mental health care11:59 to 14:31: 3) Music14:32 to 17:10: 4) Agency work17:11 to 21:52: 5) Data annotation21:53 to 23:25: Part 4: De-Uberisation23:26 to 23:56: OutroCREDITSBackground music: ‘Embrace’, by Evgeny Bardyuzha (downloaded with a creative commons licence from pixabay.com).Interviews with Samantha Howe, Linas Mazgeika, Elmar Smid and Jonas Valente were conducted in person at the ETUC ‘Platforum’ in Nicosia, Cyprus, September 25-26. Thanks to all.HighLine Executives (2025). ‘THE Uber for Videography and Photography | Kawser Khan | HTX | S2 E7’. Youtube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipFPXFIKoucFinweek Magazine (2016). ‘finweek Money Matters: The "Uber" for handymen’. Youtube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTYgUJCPY_EDownieLive (2023). ‘I tried the "UBER" for PRIVATE JETS!’ Youtube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq8CA2-y4FQThe Rideshare Guy (2022). ‘People Are Doing LAUNDRY For Others As A SIDE HUSTLE! - "The Uber for Laundry”’. Youtube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO2NG8NxGwADRONE ON Podcast (2025). ‘Spexi: Why the Uber for Drone Data thinks the World Map Needs an Upgrade | DRONE ON’. Youtubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSYnMaEsL2cEverything Electric TECH (2024). ‘This Flatpack Electric Van Is The Uber For Potatoes! |Fully Charged Show Podcast with OX Delivers’. Youtube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMIcmYOBd-EHouse of New Mobility (2016). ’CES16 - URGENT.LY: We are the Uber for tow trucks’. Youtube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lJjB3ormB4Kate Ferguson (2024). ‘How online therapy became big business’. DW News.https://www.dw.com/en/online-therapy-has-become-a-billion-dollar-business/video-70805828BetterHelp (2025). ‘Get Matched With a Therapist That Fits Your Needs, Style, and Goals’. Youtube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJE55BNmo2ETEDx Talks (2019). ‘Building a global brand, locally | Rafe Offer | TEDxLSE’. Youtube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WDGVPNrgQI

To close this season, etui.podcast went a little further afield than usual to take a look at the United States labour relations landscape with Kayla Blado, who recently served as Director of Congressional and Public Affairs at the US National Labor Relations Board. In our chat she offered some insights from her experience at the federal agency, into the recent, particularly volatile chapter in US politics, and into the country’s industrial relations system more broadly. Interested in hearing some more of our interviews? Take a look back at this and previous seasons of etui.podcast here.

‘Invest now or deindustrialise’ was the recent, stark warning put to the EU by industrial trade unions. Continued heavy losses in manufacturing jobs over the past decades are now culminating in what has been termed a crisis for European industry and the many workers it employs.But how should this crisis be addressed? Is the European Commission taking the right approach with the recently presented Clean Industrial Deal? And what could a worker-friendly European industrial policy look like today? Discussion with Judith Kirton-Darling, General Secretary of the industrial workers’ federation ⁠industriAll Europe⁠, and Ludovic Voet, Confederal Secretary at the European Trade Union Confederation.Further readingIndustrial policy for quality jobs and a just transition | etuiBenchmarking Working Europe 2024 | etui Green transition and job quality: risks for worker representation | etui Workers and the climate challenge | etui The future of the automotive sector | etuiProvisions for social conditionality, employment security and anticipation and management of change in the Clean Industrial Deal ETUC calls for adequate financing and responsible simplification in the Clean Industrial Deal | ETUC

Security is the watchword across European politics today.But what is the place for social and environmental policy in a security-conscious, or even security-driven, Europe? And where does the trade union movement fit in?Discussion with ETUI Senior Researcher Christophe Degryse about his recent Foresight Brief, ‘What if? A socio-environmental agenda in a 'security Europe'?’Further reading What if? A socio-environmental agenda in a 'security Europe'? | etuiRethinking social protection in the green transition | etuiIndustrial policy for quality jobs and a just transition | etuiSocial policy in the European Union: state of play 2023 | etui

An anniversary can be a good occasion for reflection. 20 years ago, in 2004, eight central and eastern European countries joined the European Union. Followed by the accession of Bulgaria and Romania in 2007 and Croatia in 2013, these successive enlargements nearly doubled the number of EU Member States. And they came with many hopes for economic and social cohesion, as well as for strengthened industrial relations in the region. So to what extent have these hopes been met? Discussion with Vera Scépanović, lecturer in International Relations and European Studies at Leiden University and co-editor of Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, the ETUI’s quarterly journal published by Sage Publishing. This conversation is based on the issue of Transfer, ‘20 years after: perspectives on industrial relations in Central and Eastern Europe 20 years after the EU enlargement’.

The term ‘burnout’ has become a common one in recent times. But are we clear on what it really means and, even more importantly, exactly what causes it? The World Health Organization recently recognised it as an ‘occupational phenomenon’. So what should organisations be doing to prevent burnout or, at the very least, to address it when it does occur amongst their employees? Discussion with Evangelia Demerouti, Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology at the Eindhoven University of Technology and co-author (with Niels Adaloudis) of the recent ETUI report ‘Addressing burnout in organisations’. Further reading Addressing burnout in organisations | etui The fractions and burden of cardiovascular diseases and depression attributable to psychosocial work exposures in the European Union | etui Psychosocial risks: a mounting crisis | etui Psychosocial risks in the healthcare and long-term care sectors | etui

AI is now widely used to automate business processes and replace labour-intensive tasks while changing the skill demands for those that remain. How are AI-based tools deployed to monitor worker conduct and to automate HR management processes? Through the dual lens of comparative labour law and employment relations research, our guest investigate the role of collective bargaining and government policy in shaping strategies to deploy new digital and AI-based technologies at work. More about the special issue: https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/trsa/29/1

How can the European Union steer a course towards long-term social and ecological well-being in the context of incessant emergencies? Two decades of perpetual crisis management have greatly eroded Europe’s capacity to pursue a sustainable future, as considerations of short-term expediency continue to hamper the four necessary transitions – green, digital, geopolitical and socio-economic. Find out more in Benchmarking Working Europe 2023

Advanced capitalist societies seem to limp from one existential crisis to the next, becoming ever more fragile and unstable. Yet the dominant theoretical frameworks in political economy view capitalism as fundamentally stable or, at most, subject to incremental change. Baccaro, Blyth and Pontusson emphasise the diversity of capitalist trajectories or, rather, growth models.  How should we think about modern capitalism? A growth models approach - Transfer article -  Lucio Baccaro, Mark Blyth, and Jonas Pontusson The book: Diminishing Returns, The New Politics of Growth and Stagnation - Mark Blyth, Jonas Pontusson, and Lucio Baccaro

Even in Continental Europe, trade unions are the most powerful voice defending outsiders in welfare state politics, and reducing their institutional power in unemployment insurance and elsewhere will likely make things worse for outsiders and not – as certain political leaders in these countries often imply – make things better. Unemployment benefit governance, trade unions and outsider protection in conservative welfare states - Daniel Clegg, Elke Heins, Philip Rathgeb

What are psychosocial risks? PSRs are increasingly impacting all industries in every Member State. The effects of psychosocial risks can be long-lasting and have both physical and psychological impacts on workers’ lives (such as depression, musculoskeletal disorders or burnout). Find out more: https://www.etui.org/publications/psychosocial-risks-europe https://www.etui.org/sites/default/files/2021-12/01-ETU%20BM2021-Chap5-Occupational%20health%20and%20safety%20inequalities%20in%20the%20EU_1.pdf

What type of European social citizenship does the public across the European Union (EU) prefer on the national- and EU-levels? This episode looks into the development of public opinion towards European social citizenship from 1985 to the present from a birds-eye perspective. Further readings:  35 years of public opinion surveys and European social citizenship: What can we conclude? Measuring social citizenship in social policy outputs, resources and outcomes across EU member states from 1985 to the present Welfare chauvinism across benefits and services