Subordination Theory in Practice: An Empirical Analysis of Chinese Courts’ Approaches to Classifying Labour Relationships in Platform Cases
通过分析71份中国判决书，用二元Probit模型检验从属测试的八个因素与法院认定劳动关系之间的相关性，发现“控制”和“整合”因素对判定劳动者身份有强预测力。
Abstract Determining the juridical nature of the work relationship is key to understanding the capacity of labour law to protect the rights and interests of gig workers. How to apply the traditional ‘subordination’ test and its constituent elements to platform work remains controversial in both theory and practice. In this article we examine the approaches of courts to this question using a sample of 71 Chinese judgments. We construct a binary probit model to conduct an empirical test of the degree of correlation between eight factors which serve to identify protected worker status, on the one hand, and courts’ rulings on the presence or absence of subordination, on the other. We find that, among the factors relevant to the subordination test, ‘control’ and ‘integration’ strongly predict a finding of worker status. We conclude that the subordination test is still being widely used to determine the status of gig workers in China, and that an approach to classification based on the ‘primacy of the facts’ of the case continues to be feasible in the context of platform work.