디지털 시대의 플랫폼 노동자의 기본권 보장에 관한 연구 ― 유럽연합의 ｢플랫폼 노동의 근로조건 개선에 관한 지침｣을 중심으로 ―

In the context of changing forms of work driven by digital transformation, platform work offers flexibility and accessibility while at the same time exacerbating precarious legal status and blind spots in the protection of fundamental rights. Platform companies effectively control workers through algorithms, yet formally classify them not as employees but as self‑employed independent contractors (so‑called workers in special types of employment), thereby placing them outside the protection of traditional labour laws. As a result, platform workers find themselves in the paradoxical situation of being in a substantively subordinate relationship while remaining, in legal terms, in the status of self‑employed persons. This structure undermines the effectiveness of the constitutional guarantees of the right to work and human dignity, and reveals that the modern concept of employee status, premised on subordination to an employer, and the binary labour law regime built upon it, no longer adequately captures the realities of work in the digital age. The European Union’s 2024 Directive on Improving Working Conditions in Platform Work places the substantive reality of platform work relationships at its centre and introduces a presumption of employee status under certain conditions, thereby legally recognising the subordination of platform workers. It also guarantees rights of access to information, rights to explanation, and rights to request human review of automated decisions in order to secure transparency in algorithmic control, and it codifies collective rights and occupational safety obligations, thereby indicating a normative direction aimed at realising a human‑centred labour order even in digital environments. Based on this analysis, first, in order to effectively guarantee the fundamental rights of platform workers in Korea, it is necessary to restructure the scope of protection by introducing a principle of presuming employee status that is grounded in the actual relationship of direction and control, rather than being constrained by the formal contractual arrangements between the parties. In addition, there is a need to refine so‑called algorithm‑related rights – including rights to explanation, rights to lodge objections and request human review, and rights to data portability – in order to strengthen the transparency and accountability of invisible and impersonal forms of control. Furthermore, the paper seeks a structural and comprehensive reform path that would encompass new forms of work, including platform work, through the creation of a third category of worker beyond the traditional employee/non‑employee dichotomy and the enactment of a Digital Basic Labour Rights Act. Through this line of argument, it is suggested that the constitutional right to work should be extended beyond the archetypal industrial‑era wage earner to all individuals who provide labour via digital platforms, and that even in an era in which artificial intelligence and data govern work, human dignity must be reaffirmed as the central value of the labour‑protection system.