Application of the Principle of the Primacy of Reality over Form in the New Modalities of Work from Digital Platforms in Colombia

Abstract

Work through digital platforms challenges the traditional notion of an employment relationship. Although these arrangements are presented as civil mandates, the conditions imposed by digital applications suggest subordination. This article focuses on the application of the principle of the primacy of reality on the fly in the new ways of working through digital platforms in Colombia. For the development of the article, an analytical-descriptive methodology is used in which the new work is analyzed at a technological level, in order to establish whether it is an employment relationship or an activity of a civil or commercial nature, said analysis is carried out through the review of the elements that constitute the employment contract established in the Substantive Labor Code and the forms indicated by the jurisprudential framework in relation to the subject, together with the case study of the platforms that operate in the country and the conditions required of their associates. The findings finally reveal the deficiencies and shortcomings in labor law compared to the rights in this new modality of work.