On May 27, the third lecture of “2021 Series of Lectures on Global Labor Market Flexibilization and Digital Economy Employment Regulation”, organized by the CULR and co-organized by the Labor Relations Branch of Chinese Association of Human Resource Development, was held online. Dr. Han Zhuang, a researcher at the International Law Research Institute of the University of Poitiers in France, was invited to give a keynote report on the current situation and institutional design of digital employment in France in the era of the pandemic. Professor Fu Deyin, President of our CULR, and Professor Feng Xiliang, President of the Labor Relations Branch of Chinese Association of Human Resource Development, attended the lecture, with more than 240 experts, scholars, and students from inside and outside the CULR listening online.

During the lecture, Dr. Han Zhuang focused on labor law research and introduced the two main forms of digital employment in France during the current pandemic: gig workers and remote work. He pointed out that in France, flexible forms of employment like digital employment highlight the weakening of their attributes, which seriously affects the function of labor law in adjusting labor relations. Traditional labor law is no longer able to adapt to the changing practices of labor in the digital economy era. He believed that only by further improving labor legislation, filling in the gaps in labor legislation, elevating the existing scattered regulations to the national legislative level, and forming a systematic labor code, could we better regulate social relations in the labor field, protect the rights of workers, and promote the sustainable and healthy development of the digital platform economy.

In the discussion session, Professor Cheng Yanyuan from the School of Labor and Human Resources of Renmin University of China shared insights and views from three aspects: first, "de-labor relationship" and incorporating labor relations into the scope of the Civil Code will become a development trend. Second, new employment models have broken through traditional forms of labor relations, making it difficult for current labor laws and regulations to define and apply to such labor relations. Third, it is necessary to establish a normative system between civil law and labor law to provide necessary social security for platform workers.

During the interactive session, Professor Feng Xiliang and other scholars and students discussed in-depth with Dr. Han Zhuang on topics such as the refinement of legal adjustments in new labor relations, whether "offline rights" will be recognized as one of the fundamental rights under the French labor law, the realization path of labor rights and interests of platform workers, the definition of labor relations for platform workers, and collective negotiation for ride-hailing drivers.

(International Office of Cooperation and Exchange)

The Speaker's Profile:

Han Zhuang, Ph.D. from the University of Poitiers in France, currently serves as a researcher at the Institute of International Law at the University of Poitiers in France and the Director of the Asia Department. He is mainly engaged in comparative law research. One of the main tasks of the Institute of International Law is to provide prospective and comparative research for the Ministry of Justice (France). He is also a part-time teacher at the Law School of the Paris-Sud University, SciencesPo Lyon, and EMS Lyon in France. Additionally, he is a visiting researcher at the East Asia Institute of the French National Center for Scientific Research (IAO) and a judicial expert at the Court of Appeal of Poitiers in France.