On January 13, researchers from the GREDS-EMCONET and JHU-UPF Public Policy Center took part in the kick-off meeting of the new European project on occupational safety and health of gig workers (GIG-OSH project), at the Karolinska Institutet, in Stockholm (Sweden). This project aims to know more about the new challenges for occupational safety and health of digital labour platforms.

Platform work has the potential to be the most 'disruptive' labour market phenomenon of the past decades. Its share of the total labour market is still modest according to recent estimates, but platform-like work arrangements are steadily expanding. The Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) implications of platform work have remained unexplored, although there are good reasons to assume that OSH policy and practice is also being disrupted within platform work. This disruption challenges the ambitions of the SDG8 of having decent work and the EU pillar of social rights: fair working conditions and equal opportunities as well as access to the labour market.

Against this background, the proposed project aims to investigate the OSH risks and regulations of platform work and provide recommendations to foster a safe and healthy occupational environment for platform workers in European countries based on the results of this study. Pursuing these aims, the project adopts a mixed-method study design organized into two work packages (WP) and involves platform workers living in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The consortium is formed by researchers from Karolinska Institutet, University of Copenhagen, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, University of Warwick, Université libre de Bruxelles, University of Lodz, Tampere University, Institut Hospital del Mar d'Investigacions Mèdiques and Universitat Pompeu Fabra.