Subordinação ou autonomia?: O PLP 12/2024 e a tentativa de regulamentação da atividade de motorista por plataforma no Brasil

Abstract

Significant transformations have taken place in the world of work in recent years, thanks to the expansion of Information and Communication Technologies and the rise of neoliberalism. Practices such as outsourcing, informality, flexibility and intermittency are becoming increasingly common. In this context of precariousness and erosion of social protection, there is the uberization of work. This research aims to answer the following question: is it possible to harmonize technological innovation with the protection of labour rights? For this purpose, the general objective was to debate the issue of the uberization of work in the Brazilian context, more specifically: to theoretically discuss the concept of the uberization of work; to analyze the process of the rise of neoliberalism and the dismantling of the Welfare State; to understand how neoliberal ideology, symbolized by the valorization of the figure of the entrepreneur, maintains a relationship with the phenomenon of the uberization of work; and to analyze PLP 12/2024, which intends to regulate in Brazil the professional activity of “four-wheeled vehicle application driver”. As for the methodological strategy, the historical and comparative procedure methods were adopted, as well as indirect documentation research techniques: bibliographical research and documentary research. As a result, it was found that uberization consists of a new type of work that combines high technological development and intense job insecurity; is driven by the dismantling of social protection, reflected in the flexibilization of rights, characteristic of the neoliberal regime; and finds legitimacy in the dominant discourse of valuing entrepreneurship as a superior form of work. Finally, it was found that the regulation of the activity of app driver intended by PLP 12/2024 is insufficient and creates a new legal figure, the “self-employed platform worker”, who, in practice, has no autonomy, since the way the service is provided is totally controlled by the platform, nor can the employment relationship be recognized. Furthermore, the bill, if approved, will certainly serve as a reference for regulating other categories of platform workers, which could represent the definitive institutionalization of precariousness.