Technological developments have enabled a dramatic expansion and also an evolution of telework, broadly defined as using ICTs to perform work from outside of an employer’s premises. This volume offers a new conceptual framework explaining the evolution of telework over four decades. It reviews national experiences from Argentina, Brazil, India, Japan, the United States, and ten EU countries regarding the development of telework, its various forms and effects. It also analyses large-scale surveys and company case studies regarding the incidence of telework and its effects on working time, work-life balance, occupational health and well-being, and individual and organizational performance.

This open access book shows how to design labour rights to effectively protect digital platform workers, organise accountability on digital work platforms, and guarantee workers' collective representation and action. It acknowledges that digital work platforms entail enormous risks for workers, and at the same time it reveals the extent to which labour law is in need of reconstruction. The book focusses on the conceptual links – often overlooked in the past – between labour law's categories and its regulatory approaches. By explaining and analysing the wealth of approaches that deconstruct and reconceptualise labour law, the book uncovers the organisational ideas that permeate labour law's categories as well as its policy approaches in a variety of jurisdictions. These ideas reveal a lack of fit between labour law's traditional concepts and digital platform work: digital work platforms rarely behave like hierarchical organisations; instead, they more often function as market organisers. The book provides a fresh perspective for international academic and policy debates on the regulation of digital work platforms, as well as on the purposes and foundations of labour law. It offers a way out of the impasse the debate around labour law classification has reached, by showing what labour law could learn from digital law approaches to platforms – and vice versa. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

While telecommuting gains momentum, it remains fraught with practical and legal considerations: caution is advised in assessing benefits and liabilities. Telecommuting is defined as using telecommunications technology to allow employees to work from remote locations (including the field, while traveling, or most typically from their homes) instead of commuting to a conventional workplace at a conventional time. By definition, telecommuting decentralizes, defying conventional notions of how work, workers and the "workplace" are structured. Technological advancements in the form of better network connectivity, faster handheld devices, and improved and less expensive portable computing are creating more opportunity for many workers to work outside the office. In addition, state and federal governments are beginning to emulate private industry by revising and updating their policies to add telecommuting as a means of attracting and retaining skilled white-collar workers, and to remain flexible and competitive in today's tight labor market. Proponents argue that telecommuting can improve productivity, while helping employees balance life demands. Opponents argue that there are many pitfalls in telecommuting, including isolation, lessened productivity, and reduced teamwork, synergy and camaraderie. A literature search reveals that telecommuting cases are gaining momentum in the workplace and in the courtroom. Both employers and the courts are reconciling this new paradigm with employment laws that predate modern technology. The most common legal liability seems to stem from workers' compensation concerns and the fact that it is often unclear precisely when telecommuters are working, when are they preparing to work, and when they have temporarily stopped working. In addition, there have been some cases where employees requested telework arrangements as a "reasonable accommodation" under the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 2000 a trial balloon on regulating home offices caused an uproar in the popular press and OSHA issued a formal directive to soothe concerns about possible intrusions into workers' homes, stating that it will not inspect home offices for violations of federal safety and health rules, and it does not expect employers to do so either. Still, many employers remain wary of telecommuting. These are just a few of the issues that have sprung up around telecommuting. The following literature search presents a wide variety of articles covering the topic from many different angles. Many emphasize the need for (and some give examples of) telecommuting agreements and an understanding of how teleworkers will be managed. Some also clarify alternative work arrangements that take advantage of telecommuting technology and opportunities as alternatives to full-time telecommuting. Those options include but are not limited to: job sharing, flex time, partial telecommuting, working as an independent contractor, and working as a leased or contract employee.

The Framework Agreement on Telework (2002) was the first of the non-legally binding (soft law) agreements concluded by the European Social Partners. The employer organisations UNICE, CEEP, and UEAPME, and the trade union organisation ETUC. Although