As part of her Marie Jahoda Visiting Fellowship (2022), Vellah Kedogo Kigwiru investigated ‘The Potential and Limits of Competition Law in Improving the Working Conditions of Digital Labour Platform Workers: The Case of Kenya e-Hailing App Market’.
Research on the gig economy has revealed that gig workers have weak bargaining power, making them susceptible to exploitation. Despite the precarious position of gig workers, when classified as independent contractors, they do not benefit from employment or competition law. Under competition law, gig workers are prohibited from entering into collective bargaining agreements because they are not employees. Some scholars have argued that there is a need to extend the labour exemption in competition law to gig workers because they are in the same situation as workers. In this project, the potential and limits of competition law in improving the working conditions of gig workers are discussed.