The gig economy has been growing rapidly in China. According to the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, there are currently 84 million workers in new forms of employment (gig workers), accounting for 21% of the country’s total workforce. Over the past five years, Chinese courts have handled approximately 420,000 civil cases involving gig workers. Many disputes focus on whether employment relationships exist between platform companies and workers.
The guiding cases address scenarios involving delivery riders, live-streaming hosts, and designated drivers, with a particular focus on determining the existence of labor relationships between platform companies and gig workers.
For instance, Guiding Cases No. 237 and No. 238 both involve delivery riders and their relationships with platform companies or affiliated labor service providers. The courts emphasized that the key factor in determining an employment relationship is the presence of “dominant management”. The courts are required to base their decisions on the actual working arrangements and comprehensively, taking into account factors such as the worker’s autonomy in determining the working hours and workload, the extent of managerial control over the work process, whether the worker is required to comply with work rules, algorithmic regulations, disciplinary measures, and reward or penalty systems, the continuity of the work, and whether the worker has the ability to set or change transaction prices. If dominant management is established, an employment relationship should be recognized as existing in accordance with the law.
Contributors: CJO Staff Contributors Team
