Programme of 2024

Digital transformation of work has recently become the hot topic of labour law research for more than one simple reason. New digital technologies have rapidly spread all over the world in the field of work (as well), and their future seems to be even brighter. But digital technologies and related socio-economic, legal changes have serious implications for labour markets and work relations. 

Above all, digitalization has given a new impetus to the expansion of non-standard forms of work and a rearrangement of standard employment. Platform work, gig work or crowdsourcing are new forms of employment in many senses, spicing up the traditional debate on: 'which guarantees should be secured for which workers?' This leads us to the usual questions about labour law’s personal scope, but it also carries on to the details of standard employees’ rights.  

How can the traditional protections of, say, occupational health and safety, working time or data privacy apply in a digitalised workplace? Can trade unions, collective bargaining agreements or the right to strike still fulfil their functions in contemporary labour markets? Indeed, labour law faces the challenge whether new problems may be solved with the old, classic labour law framework. 

The Summer School MORE DIGITAL, LESS HUMAN? LABOUR LAW AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY focuses on introducing the latest challenges of the law governing employment.