The dissertation is focused on the peculiarities of the modern mechanism of
protection of labour rights and legitimate interests in the context of development of
precarious work, as well as the problems of implementation of individual and collective
fundamental labour rights of workers engaged in precarious work.
Chapter 1 of the thesis analyses the essence of the mechanism for protection of
labour rights and legitimate interests in terms of development of non-standard forms of
employment. It is noted that the mechanism for protection of labour rights and legitimate
interests is a flexible system which is transformed under the influence of digitalisation of
society and labour, development of non-standard forms of employment, and the wartime
legal regime, and responds to changes in socio-political and socio-economic relations by
changing its elements - labour legislation, types of forms of protection of labour rights
and legitimate interests, subjects of labour rights protection and protection procedures.
The author proposes to consider the mechanism of protection of rights in labour law as a
combination of: (1) the right of a person to protection, (2) legal provisions which regulate
the right to protection and its exercise, (3) forms and methods of protection, (4) protection
procedures, (5) subjects (participants to labour relations which have the right to protection,
and public authorities, courts and other institutions authorized to protect labour rights and
legitimate interests).
The author focuses on the complex nature of the concept of protection of rights and
legitimate interests in labour law. The author examines the categories of "legitimate
interest" and "subjective right" and proposes to distinguish between labour legitimate
interest and subjective labour right by substantive and formal criteria. The substantive
criteria are: (1) the essence of a legitimate interest and a subjective right, (2) the content
of a legitimate interest and a subjective right, (3) the behaviour of the relevant subject in
legal relations arising out of the exercise of a legitimate interest or exercise of a subjective
right, (4) the structure of a legitimate interest and a subjective right. Formal criteria
include: (1) formal legal certainty of the legitimate interest and subjective right, (2) detail
of their entrenchment in law, (3) degree of guarantee and security of law.
Chapter 2 of the research is devoted to the concept of precarious work, its forms
and impact on the exercise and protection of the rights of workers engaged in precarious
work. It is determined that precarious work is a collective term which encompasses forms
of employment which differ from standard employment by one or more criteria. Based on
the analysis of scientific works in the field of precarious work, the author establishes that
domestic researchers formulate the concept of precarious work "from the opposite": any
forms of labour organisation that differ from full-time work with subordination to the
employer are considered to be precarious work. The author offers his own vision of the
concept of precarious work as a form of labour organisation in the form of labour relations
other than classical labour relations or self-employment relations, in which there is an
economic dependence of an employee on an employer through personal performance of
work (provision of services) on a regular basis for remuneration.
The author proposes to classify non-standard forms of employment according to the
criterion of their legislative (legal) regulation. Those regulated by law include: flexible
working hours; home-based work; remote work; part-time work; work under an
employment contract with non-fixed working hours (on-call work), work under a fixed-
term employment contract; temporary and seasonal employment; work of gig-specialists;
borrowed labour (outstaffing, outsourcing, personnel leasing); work under civil law
contracts. Non-standard forms of labour that are not regulated by law, either labour or any
other, include: platform work of services for the delivery of goods and passenger
transportation (work on digital platforms), networking, coworking, activities in R&D
offices; unregistered employment in the formal sector (shadow employment).
According to the criteria of their legal certainty, forms of precarious work can be
classified as stable and unstable (precarious).
