Author(s): Gao Xunuo, Chen Houju, Ouyang Yanping, Wu Keqi
Paper Details: Volume 4, Issue 5
Citation: IJLSSS 4(5) 12
Page No: 159 – 177
ABSTRACT
With the rapid development of the digital economy, new forms of employment under platform-based work arrangements have posed structural challenges to the traditional criteria for identifying subordination in labor law. Focusing on the core dimension of dominant labor management, this article examines how algorithmic management and technological control reshape personal and organizational subordination within labor processes. Through a review of domestic and international identification theories and an empirical analysis of judicial cases, this study highlights the limitations of traditional formalistic contractual approaches and proposes the construction of a substantive identification framework supplemented by technological subordination.
The study argues that legal recognition of employment relationships in the platform economy should incorporate technological forms of control into the assessment framework. It further suggests that a balance between workers’ rights protection and enterprises’ flexibility in employment arrangements can be achieved through quantitative evaluation of algorithmic management intensity, optimization of the allocation of the burden of proof, and improvement of legal protection mechanisms for quasi-employees.
Keywords: Labor Relationship; Flexible Employment; Dominant Labor Management
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. RESEARCH BACKGROUND
The emergence of the digital economy has reshaped traditional patterns of labor organization, and platform-based economic activities have gradually become an important channel for employment absorption. Against this background, new forms of employment represented by food delivery services, ride-hailing platforms, and instant delivery services have expanded rapidly. However, such employment arrangements demonstrate significant non-traditional characteristics in their legal structure. Workers generally participate in platform operations through cooperation agreements, service contracts, or contractual arrangements of similar nature, while their actual labor processes remain subject to continuous control exercised by platform systems.
Traditional labor relationships are primarily based on the concept of personal subordination, emphasizing that workers provide labor under the direction, supervision, and management of employers. However, within the platform economy, traditional forms of direct command have gradually been replaced by the combined operation of algorithmic scheduling, data-driven rules, and performance evaluation systems. As a result, traditional identification criteria have increasingly failed to effectively explain platform-based employment relationships, creating a significant normative gap in the determination of labor relationships.
1.2. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
In current judicial practice, the identification of labor relationships involving platform workers remains highly controversial. Some judicial decisions continue to prioritize the formal contractual relationship and deny the existence of employment relationships. In contrast, other decisions have begun to examine the actual degree of control exercised by platforms but lack a unified analytical framework and consistent standards.
The fundamental question lies in whether the existing theory of subordination can adequately respond to new forms of labor control generated by algorithmic management, or whether a new analytical paradigm should be established to address the changing structure of labor relations.
1.3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This article adopts dominant labor management as its central analytical concept and combines theoretical reconstruction with empirical case analysis. Through this approach, the study aims to establish a systematic framework for identifying labor relationships under new forms of employment and proposes corresponding institutional improvement strategies.
2. THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS AND LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. EVOLUTION OF THE THEORY OF SUBORDINATION
The core of labor relationship identification theory lies in the concept of subordination. German labor law theory has long regarded personal subordination as the primary criterion for identifying labor relationships, emphasizing the situation in which workers provide labor under the direction and supervision of employers (Binder, 2009).
Chinese scholars, based on the absorption of foreign theoretical approaches, have developed a “three-dimensional” structure of subordination, including personal subordination, economic subordination, and organizational subordination (Chang Kai, 2004). Zheng Shangyuan (2005) argues that comprehensive judgment should be adopted to avoid the mechanical application of a single criterion.
2.2. REVIEW OF DOMESTIC SCHOLARSHIP
Focusing on the identification of labor relationships in new forms of employment, domestic scholarship has developed multiple research approaches.
First, the path of expanding subordination theory. Wang Tianyu (2016) argues that platform algorithms should be incorporated into the scope of personal subordination through interpretative expansion; Lou Yu (2019) proposes the “element-based identification method,” which makes comprehensive judgments through multiple indicators.
Second, the path of constructing an intermediate category. Wang Qian (2020) advocates establishing an intermediate category beyond the binary structure, namely an institutional category between labor relationships and civil relationships; Feng Yanjun and Zhang Yinghui (2011) advocate constructing an independent regulatory system through special legislation.
Third, the path of technological control. Zhao Hongmei (2021) points out that algorithmic management essentially constitutes implicit control and should be incorporated into the evaluation system of labor law; Chen Long (2020) emphasizes that platforms form structural dominance through data monopoly.
Although existing studies have already paid attention to technological factors, they lack a unified theoretical integration framework.
2.3. REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL SCHOLARSHIP
Focusing on the identification of labor relationships in new forms of employment, international scholarship has mainly developed from the perspectives of comparative law and the transformation of subordination theory.
In Germany, the “quasi-employee” system expands the scope of protection beyond traditional labor relationships (Wank, 2010). In the United States, worker classification is mainly determined through the control test and the ABC test, which examine whether workers are economically dependent and whether enterprises exercise control over the labor process (Prassl, 2013).
European scholar De Stefano (2016) points out that although platform workers appear to be independent in form, they are substantially dependent on platforms and should therefore be included within the scope of labor protection.
Overall, existing international studies have provided useful theoretical references for the identification of labor relationships in new forms of employment. However, due to differences in legal systems and institutional environments, foreign theories and standards still require further localization when applied in China.
3. CHARACTERISTICS AND LEGAL ANALYSIS OF DOMINANT LABOR MANAGEMENT
The wave of digital technology is reshaping the form of the economy and redefining the concept of “labor” itself. The platform economy has given rise to emerging occupations such as ride-hailing drivers, food delivery riders, and online streamers, which possess strong flexibility. Although the number of flexible employment workers in China has reached 200 million, there are many disputes over conceptual definitions in daily practice: food delivery riders may encounter difficulties in obtaining recognition of work-related injuries after traffic accidents occur during delivery; ride-hailing drivers may lose their sources of income after their accounts are blocked but may have no effective channels for complaints. The core task of this section is to determine the criteria for identifying labor relationships in contemporary platform employment by deeply analyzing the characteristics of traditional dominant labor management and to examine the significant problems it has caused in the identification of labor relationships.
3.1. THE RECONSTRUCTION AND TRANSFORMATION OF TRADITIONAL HIERARCHICAL POWER BY ALGORITHMIC POWER
3.1.1. THE ALIENATION AND BLACK-BOX NATURE OF TECHNOLOGICAL POWER
In traditional industrial society, labor management was mainly achieved through hierarchical systems, in which superiors exercised control over workers. Employers could control the entire labor process through practical methods such as on-site inspections, attendance recording, and hierarchical administrative instructions.
The management model of traditional manufacturing factories serves as a typical example: an electronic processing factory strictly required workers to follow designated working hours; workshop supervisors monitored workers’ operations through on-site inspections; workers were required to complete assembly tasks according to production targets assigned by the workshop and were not allowed to modify operating procedures without authorization. Once violations occurred, they would be reported step by step by team leaders and handled through measures such as fines or job transfers depending on the circumstances.
This case directly demonstrates the dominant management system under the traditional hierarchical structure, which standardized the labor process through supervision based on physical presence.
However, under the circumstances of lacking the right to know and bargaining power, workers passively accept the real-time allocation of algorithmic models. In this process, algorithms not only perform the function of matching production factors but also actually exercise the function of labor management. Since the operational logic and evaluation weights of algorithms are often defined by platforms as core business secrets, technological power therefore demonstrates a serious black-box characteristic.
Regarding the labor domination issues caused by algorithmic black boxes, scholars have already provided clear professional definitions and in-depth analyses. Professor Lou Yu from China University of Political Science and Law points out that the data information relied upon by algorithms has constituted the necessary means of production for workers in new forms of employment. The alienation of algorithmic technological power is essentially the result of platforms using their technological monopoly advantages to deprive workers of their rights to know and bargain, dominate, and even damage workers’ legitimate rights and interests, thereby achieving unreasonable appropriation of labor surplus value.
3.1.2. THE ABSOLUTE CONCENTRATION OF DECISION-MAKING POWER AND THE EXTREME FRAGMENTATION OF EXECUTION POWER
This control appears to break through the traditional management model of enterprises, but in essence it strengthens workers’ subordination to platforms. The concentration of decision-making power and the fragmentation of execution power are precisely the concrete manifestations of this control model.
From the perspective of workers, although they appear to enjoy the freedom to go online and offline at any time, in the actual execution process, they are firmly bound to the platform by individual fragmented tasks and lose their autonomous control over the labor process.
The imbalance between decision-making power and execution power essentially reflects the platform’s use of technological advantages to dominate workers. Professor Chang Kai further points out that platforms deliberately achieve the separation of labor relationships by tightly controlling decision-making power while fragmenting and transferring execution power in order to evade employer responsibilities and reduce labor costs, thereby creating the illusion that no labor relationship exists.
3.2. MANIFEST DIMENSIONS OF DOMINANT LABOR MANAGEMENT: SPATIOTEMPORAL, BEHAVIORAL, AND ECONOMIC SANCTIONS
3.2.1. THE DEEP INTERWEAVING OF IMPLICIT SPATIOTEMPORAL TAKEOVER AND BEHAVIORAL STANDARDIZATION DATA MONITORING
The determination of traditional labor relations primarily relies on two core elements—working hours and workplace—requiring workers to accept the explicit and direct management of the employer within a fixed physical space-time. However, under the dominant labor management model, this rigid spatiotemporal constraint has been transformed by platform algorithms into a more permeable form of flexible control. Although platform enterprises do not formally compel workers through contracts to work in fixed locations and profess that they enjoy the freedom to go online and offline at any time, in their labor practices, they utilize implicit data indicators to indirectly achieve a comprehensive takeover of workers’ physical space-time. It can be said that internet enterprises are at all times issuing work instructions and conducting work direction to platform workers. This flexible control of space-time has not weakened the platform’s dominance; on the contrary, it has broken through the physical boundaries of traditional labor, extending management infinitely into workers’ non-working hours and forcing them into an implicit labor state of round-the-clock readiness, thereby substantially and significantly strengthening workers’ organizational subordinate position to the platform.
3.2.2. THE IMMEDIATE AUTOMATED OPERATION OF ECONOMIC SANCTIONS AND THEIR COLLISION WITH LEGAL BOTTOM LINES
The reason dominant labor management can be effectively implemented in new business forms and maintain its absolute deterrence lies fundamentally in the platform’s construction of an immediate, automated economic sanction mechanism. Unlike traditional industrial society, which requires a series of cumbersome and concrete personnel procedures. The platform’s economic sanction power is directly triggered and executed in real time by algorithmic systems without any human intervention, and the management mechanism is extremely simplified. More critically, because algorithms are unable to identify the complex objective factual factors that trigger violations, this disorderly exercise of technological sanctions often directly breaches the constraints of the proportionality principle and procedural justice. Technological privilege covertly enriches the platform, while institutional risks, legal hazards, and existential crises are entirely left to workers in a disadvantaged position.
3.3. “TECHNOLOGICAL SUBORDINATION”: THE JURISPRUDENTIAL CHARACTERIZATION OF DOMINANT LABOR MANAGEMENT
3.3.1. THE THEORETICAL REINFORCEMENT OF TRADITIONAL SUBORDINATION BY TECHNOLOGICAL SUBORDINATION
Under the framework of dominant labor management, the paradigms of personal subordination and economic subordination in traditional labor relation determination can no longer accommodate the novel, depersonalized alienated expressions of platform-based employment, making it necessary to introduce “technological subordination” as a core judgment paradigm to achieve digital reinforcement and reconstruction of the traditional subordination theory. The proposal of technological subordination effectively resolves the limitation of the traditional subordination theory of “emphasizing formal contracts while neglecting substantive performance,” and can precisely capture the underlying characteristics of the platform’s deep dominance achieved through implicit algorithms, thus becoming a key analytical tool for determining the establishment of dominant labor management.
3.3.2. THE JURISPRUDENTIAL CRITIQUE OF THE EXPLOITATIVE SUBSTANCE OF DOMINANT MANAGEMENT AND THE UNIDIRECTIONAL TRANSFER OF RISK
The economic and legal substance concealed behind platform enterprises’ leveraging of algorithmic advantages and the construction of technological subordination is a novel form of exploitation realized by capital through modern technological means. In labor practices, the platform, relying on its underlying technological monopoly and information asymmetry, exclusively appropriating the vast majority of the surplus value and data dividends created by workers, and achieving a severe disconnect between “management returns and risk burdens.”
Professor Chang Kai further adds that this technological camouflage of “de-labor-relationalization” and “depersonalized control” has led to a serious asymmetry of rights and obligations between the platform and workers: the platform enjoys the data dividends and surplus value created by workers, yet unidirectionally pushes occupational injuries, social insurance, and various market-operating risks onto individual workers. The platform conducts unilateral exploitation and defense through algorithmic rules, increasing the risks of workers’ labor without bearing the corresponding employer responsibilities, which obviously and seriously violates the fundamental principles of fairness and justice in labor law and the demands of digital justice.
4. THE CONSTRUCTION OF STANDARDS FOR DOMINANT LABOR MANAGEMENT
4.1. THE CONSTITUTIVE ELEMENTS OF DOMINANT LABOR MANAGEMENT
Against the dual backdrop of the decentralization of platform-based employment and the concealment of algorithmic control, constructing a labor relation determination standard centered on “dominant labor management” is both a theoretical imperative and a practical necessity for resolving the failure of traditional subordination standards in application and achieving substantive protection of the legitimate rights and interests of platform workers. Dominant labor management is not an abstract concept but should become a standard for the determination of labor relations. It is specifically determined by the following four interrelated and synergistically functioning constitutive elements:
4.1.1. CONTINUOUS ALGORITHMIC CONTROL
Continuous algorithmic control constitutes the technical mechanism and external manifestation of dominant labor management. This element focuses on the penetrating supervision of digital technology over the labor provision process. Leveraging the advantage of information asymmetry, the platform implements round-the-clock, full-process collection and analysis of workers’ behavioral data, rendering workers’ performance behavior in a unidirectional and irreversible state of transparency at the technological level. This technology-based management breaks the intermittency of traditional physical-space management and establishes, within the digital space, workers’ absolute dependence on and continuous compliance with the platform’s algorithmic directives.
4.1.2. SUBSTANTIVE CONTROL OVER THE LABOR PROCESS
Substantive control over the labor process manifests the platform’s substantive monopoly over the use value of labor power. This element concerns the deprivation of workers’ autonomous right of expression by the platform’s management authority. Although the platform outwardly relaxes restrictions on the workplace, within the labor organizational architecture, it achieves deep control over the specific process of labor provision through unilaterally establishing rigid business performance procedures and standardized service criteria. Workers’ autonomy of will and discretion in the labor performance process are reduced to a minimum, and their labor behavior has been completely subsumed within the platform’s pre-set business closed-loop system.
The substantive control over the labor process should be assessed with a focus on whether workers retain genuine autonomous decision-making space. A certain degree of technological coordination of the labor process by the platform does not necessarily imply the establishment of a labor relationship. Therefore, judicial authorities should distinguish between two different scenarios: ”the platform providing transaction rules” and “the platform implementing labor management”—focusing on whether platform rules have been transformed from general market coordination into continuous direction of the specific labor process.
4.1.3. THE PLATFORM POSSESSES IMMEDIATE SANCTIONING CAPACITY
Immediate sanctioning capacity is the regulatory dimension safeguard for the platform to maintain dominant management relations. This element directly addresses the coercive force of the platform’s management authority and the private self-help remedy nature of the exercise of sanctioning power. Leveraging technological dominance, the platform has constructed a mechanism for unilaterally imposing adverse consequences and economic detriment, such that the pursuit of liability for breach no longer requires following the procedural transitions of the traditional hierarchical system, but instead manifests as the immediate obstruction of benefit distribution or transaction eligibility. This immediate negative evaluation and sanction mechanism generates powerful binding force within the legal relationship between the two parties, constituting a compulsory institutional safeguard that forces workers to comply with the managerial will.
4.1.4. WORKERS FORM SIGNIFICANT ECONOMIC DEPENDENCE ON THE PLATFORM
Economic dependence is primarily used to determine whether platform workers possess the economic autonomy that independent operators should have. Under the dominant labor management standard, the focus of determination lies not in whether the worker provides labor exclusively to a single platform, nor should it be based solely on the proportion of platform income during a certain period as the basis for determination; rather, a comprehensive judgment should be made in light of the worker’s continuous dependence on the platform’s labor opportunities, the stability of income sources, and the practical ability to independently acquire clients and conduct similar business activities after leaving the platform.
The above four elements are not isolated from one another, nor should they be assessed through mechanical quantitative accumulation. In specific cases, all of these elements should serve as the core elements for identifying the platform’s management authority, while the degree of the worker’s economic dependence should serve as a supplementary judgment factor.
5. EXAMINATION OF JUDICIAL PRACTICE AND CASE ANALYSIS
5.1. THE EVOLUTION OF DOMESTIC JUDICIAL ADJUDICATION LOGIC: FROM FORMALISM TO SUBORDINATION IDENTIFICATION
In the early stage of the development of new employment forms in China, courts attached considerable importance to the principle of freedom of contract when adjudicating relevant cases. As long as the parties had signed cooperation agreements, or the worker had registered as an individual industrial and commercial household, the courts typically directly negated the existence of a labor relationship. However, following the Supreme People’s Court’s issuance of relevant policy documents in 2021 concerning the protection of the labor rights and interests of workers in new employment forms, the adjudicative approach gradually began to shift toward the determination of substantive subordination.
5.1.1. THE PIERCING REVIEW OF SUBSTANTIVE CONTROL OVER REGISTERED IDENTITY
Although the focus of China’s judicial adjudication has gradually shifted toward subordination determination, this maneuver has not changed the substance of labor provision, and the label of de-labor-relationalization has been subjected to piercing review under the dominant standard. Wang Quanxing (2019) points out that such de-labor-relationalization operations have not in fact altered the substance of labor provision. From recent representative precedents, such as certain typical cases handled by courts in Beijing and Shanghai, it can be seen that courts have begun to apply the dominant standard to conduct piercing reviews. Specifically, courts examine whether the platform, through algorithms, has implemented substantive personnel management over workers operating under the nominal identity of individual industrial and commercial households. If a worker cannot independently determine pricing, cannot autonomously select service recipients, and remains subject to the platform’s scoring and evaluation system, then even if the worker has registered as an individual industrial and commercial household, the courts tend to recognize the existence of a substantive labor relationship.
5.1.2. THE EVIDENTIARY TRANSFORMATION OF ALGORITHMS AS DIGITAL AUTHORITY TO DIRECT
Transforming algorithmic directives into the authority to direct and supervise in the procedural sense of litigation constitutes a current difficulty in judicial practice. Domestic scholar Chang Kai (2021) proposes that algorithms are not merely technological tools; behind them lies the embodiment of the enterprise’s managerial will. Through an analysis of a labor dispute case involving a major domestic food delivery platform, it can be observed that courts have begun to treat the control elements implicit in order-completion rules as a manifestation of the enterprise’s exercise of sanctioning power. When measures automatically implemented by the system—such as restricting order dispatch, deducting liquidated damages, and enforcing online duration—are recognized by judicial authorities as sanctioning privileges, the algorithm completes its evidentiary transformation from a technological tool to a dominant management instrument, becoming the core basis for determining subordination.
5.2. ANALYSIS OF TYPICAL STRATEGIES IN CHINA’S PLATFORM EMPLOYMENT: MULTI-TIER SUBCONTRACTING AND ALGORITHMIC CONCEALMENT
China’s domestic platform economy exhibits considerable complexity in its organizational structure, which differs from the single-platform direct employment or independent contractor models commonly seen in Western countries.
5.2.1. THE DILEMMA OF THE TRIPARTITE ARCHITECTURE AMONG PLATFORMS, AGENCIES, AND WORKERS
The domestic platform employment model exhibits distinctive complexity, generally adopting a combined model that integrates the matchmaking of flexible employment platforms with offline agency subcontracting. This multi-tiered, nested structure artificially erects a legal barrier between workers and the substantive employing entity, resulting in the separation of management authority from the responsible entity. Under this architecture, the platform exclusively controls dominant management authorities such as algorithmic dispatch and pricing, while agencies primarily assume financial functions such as wage distribution. Empirical research indicates that it is precisely this localized subcontracting strategy that directly leads to significant regional disparities in the rate of labor relationship recognition, creating structural obstacles for workers seeking to defend their rights.
5.2.2. THE LOCALIZED MANIFESTATION OF ALGORITHMIC INDUCEMENT AND FLEXIBLE DOMINATION
Unlike the relatively harsh dismissal methods employed abroad, the management techniques of Chinese platforms are more inductive and concealed. Platforms typically design algorithmic incentive mechanisms with game-theoretic characteristics—such as rush-order bonuses and team scoring—to guide workers into extending their working hours in pursuit of excess returns. Lin Jia and Zhu Junlong (2024) point out that this flexible domination does indeed strengthen economic dependence and personal subordination, but under the existing legal framework, it is easily misinterpreted as the worker’s voluntary choice, thereby concealing the substantive technological coercion.
5.3. Analysis of a Typical Precedent: The Case of Langxi Certain Service Outsourcing Co., Ltd. v. Xu Moushen on the Confirmation of a Labor Relationship Dispute
Through a comparative analysis of this typical case published by the Supreme People’s Court, it can be observed that the center of gravity of domestic judicial logic is shifting, gradually moving from a past emphasis on organizational elements toward an examination of management elements.
(1) CASE INTRODUCTION AND MULTI-TIER SUBCONTRACTING BACKGROUND
This case involves a food delivery rider registered through a specific mobile application. In the course of daily delivery work, the rider ostensibly maintained only a technological matchmaking relationship with the platform enterprise, and was embedded within the organizational structure into a complex legal network of multiple nested layers involving local agencies and labor subcontractors. The employing entity attempted to exploit the formal requirements of such multi-tier subcontracting and individual industrial and commercial household registration to disguise the de facto labor management relationship as an equal commercial cooperative or contracting relationship. The rider suffered personal injury during the provision of delivery services and subsequently filed a lawsuit concerning whether a substantive labor relationship existed between the labor and capital parties, thereby subjecting the technological control measures behind platform employment to comprehensive judicial scrutiny for the first time.
(2) POINTS OF CONTROVERSY AND DEFENSE ARGUMENTS OF THE PARTIES
The core controversy of the case lay in whether the worker, under algorithmic scheduling, possessed the substantive right to refuse assigned tasks, and whether this form of non-physically-present control constituted subordination in the sense of labor law. The platform and subcontractors primarily defended themselves on the basis of the principle of freedom of contract, arguing that the rider could autonomously determine online and offline times, that the parties had signed explicit commercial cooperation agreements, and that the rider’s remuneration was settled on a per-order basis, thereby lacking the personal subordination and organizational subordination characteristic of traditional labor relationships.
6. LEGAL IMPROVEMENTS AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
6.1. THE LEGISLATIVE PATH FROM BINARY OPPOSITION TO TIERED PROTECTION
6.1.1. AMENDING THE LABOR CONTRACT LAW TO ESTABLISH THE DETERMINATION STANDARD OF TECHNOLOGICAL SUBORDINATION
China’s current Labor Contract Law is primarily designed based on the standard labor relationship of the industrial era. It is recommended that, when amending the Labor Contract Law, special provisions for new employment forms be added to clarify the legal equivalence between technological domination and traditional direction and supervision. Through improved legislative confirmation, the adjudicative hesitation of grassroots judicial authorities when confronting algorithmic black box control can be effectively eliminated, providing a clear superior statutory basis for dominant labor management.
6.1.2. CREATING AN “INCOMPLETE CONFORMITY WITH LABOR RELATIONSHIP” SYSTEM THAT BALANCES PROTECTION AND FLEXIBILITY
For groups of workers whose degree of domination has not yet reached that of a standard labor relationship, but whose economic dependence and organizational subordination are extremely strong, a local legal status of a third category of workers should be established. By establishing an institutional framework of basic protection plus differentiated compensation, the normative rupture of the traditional binary opposition can be broken. Under this framework, regardless of whether a standard labor relationship is determined to exist between the labor and capital parties, platform enterprises must mandatorily bear the protective obligations of occupational injury protection and minimum wage standards. As for institutional rights such as overtime pay and economic compensation, which are highly dependent on strong personal dependency, these should be left to be regulated by full-time standard labor relationships, thereby achieving a legal balance between the protection of workers’ rights and interests and the flexibility of enterprise employment.
6.2. THE JUDICIAL-ADMINISTRATIVE ENFORCEMENT SYNERGY OF PIERCING REVIEW SUPERVISION AND ALGORITHMIC COMPLIANCE DISCLOSURE
6.2.1. ESTABLISHING SUBSTANTIVE EMPLOYER IDENTIFICATION RULES TO BREAK THROUGH THE MULTI-TIER SUBCONTRACTING BARRIER
Even if platform enterprises transfer the nominal employment and contractual subjects to offline agencies through layer upon layer of outsourcing, as long as algorithmic control power, price-setting power, and labor scheduling power remain in the hands of the platform, judicial authorities should pierce the formal shell and determine the platform enterprise to be the substantive employer or hold it liable for joint and several liability. This piercing review mechanism can effectively curb enterprises’ use of organizational fragmentation to evade statutory employer responsibilities.
6.2.2. ESTABLISHING A NORMALIZED ALGORITHM AUDIT AND INFORMATION DISCLOSURE SYSTEM
In order to dispel the imbalance of power structure between labor and capital brought about by the “algorithmic black box,” labor administrative departments should take the lead in establishing a regular compliance audit system for the dispatch, compensation, and sanction algorithms of large platform enterprises. Algorithmic transparency is the institutional prerequisite for resisting the alienation of dominant management. The law should grant workers and their trade union organizations the basic right to know about the operational logic of algorithms. Before unilaterally adjusting core algorithmic rules, commission ratios, or sanction thresholds, platform enterprises must lawfully fulfill hearing or public notification procedures, preventing technology from exacerbating the current imbalance of rights and obligations, and ensuring that algorithmic operation is always subject to the bottom-line constraints of the rule of law.
6.2.3. THE CONSTRUCTION OF MULTI-PARTY SYNERGY MECHANISMS AND THE INTRODUCTION OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS
(1) PROMOTING THE UNIONIZATION AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING OF NEW EMPLOYMENT FORMS
Against the practical backdrop of an extreme dearth of individual workers’ bargaining power, collective-dimension rights protection must be introduced to counterbalance the disorderliness of algorithmic domination, which is consistent with the requirements of Document No. 18 of 2021 issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security concerning the improvement of the democratic management system of platform enterprises. New employment form workers should be actively encouraged and guided to join trade union organizations, and industry-level collective bargaining should be conducted through industry trade unions around core issues closely affecting workers’ vital interests, such as algorithmic remuneration, upper limits on labor intensity, and dispatch rules. By improving the democratic management system of platform enterprises and strengthening the multi-party game between industry associations and trade union organizations, the unilateral technological domination should be gradually transformed into bidirectional democratic consultation, thereby resolving the negative impacts of dominant labor management at the source.
(2) ESTABLISHING A GOVERNMENT-ORIENTED ALGORITHM ETHICS REGULATORY SYSTEM WITH MULTI-PARTY PARTICIPATION
In response to the disorderly expansion of technological privilege, it is recommended to establish an algorithm ethics committee jointly participated in by labor administrative departments, platform enterprises, trade union representatives, and legal and technical experts. The committee should regularly assess the impact of employment algorithms on workers’ physical and mental health and on social public safety, and formulate corresponding industry self-regulation guidelines and ethical norms. Through flexible regulatory measures such as setting mandatory offline hours and establishing dynamic risk early warnings, the normative deficiencies of the lagging response of rigid legislation can be effectively compensated, thereby achieving a balanced development between algorithmic technological progress and humanistic protection at the institutional level.
7. CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK
7.1. SUMMARY OF RESEARCH FINDINGS
Through an in-depth analysis of dominant labor management, this paper argues that labor relations in the context of the digital economy have undergone an essential reconstruction. Traditional standard labor relationships are predominantly manifested as will-based obedience within physical space, whereas current new employment forms have shifted toward algorithmic embedding at the logical level. China’s domestic labor legal system must squarely confront this paradigm shift in the power structure of employment. Specifically, through substantive and piercing review mechanisms, the substantive subordination concealed behind technological power should be precisely identified, and on this basis, a tiered and classified protection system adapted to China’s national conditions should be constructed. The introduction of a reasonable dominant labor management standard can effectively integrate traditional subordination theory with modern technological control analysis, thereby providing a unified theoretical foundation and a clear practical path for the judicial determination of labor relations under new employment forms.
7.2. FUTURE RESEARCH OUTLOOK
Future academic research needs to further attend to the issue of labor displacement brought about by the deep intervention of artificial intelligence. At the same time, against the global backdrop of increasingly stringent cross-border platform regulation, how China’s domestic labor standards can achieve effective alignment with international labor standards, and how China can contribute its own solutions to global digital economy governance, are also major issues urgently requiring in-depth exploration. Ultimately, algorithmic regulation and platform employment governance are not merely pure legal-technical issues, but rather a grand social issue concerning the fairness of social distribution and digital justice in the digital age.
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