Features of social and legal protection of employees on labor platforms and directions of formation of regulatory policy of Ukraine under conditions of martial law

The article explores and reveals the problems and opportunities for creating an effective system of social and legal protection of workers in the platform segment of employment in Ukraine, grounding on the analysis and generalization of results of the expert survey, in the preparation and conduct of which the authors were directly involved. The conditions of the military conflict and the needs of postwar reconstruction of Ukraine are also taken into account. The main reasons hindering the legal and social protection of platform workers are identified. The key ones among them are the following: legal uncertainty of the status of subjects of labor platforms (both platform workers and labor platforms themselves); low opportunities for collective representation of the interests of employees on the platforms; reluctance of employees to officially register and declare their income. Also, a set of factors of a social, informational, communicative, organizational, managerial and technical nature was revealed. These factors arise in the process of interaction of the subjects of the platform economy and increase the social and legal insecurity of the platform employees. The obtained results were interpreted by the authors in the context of the martial law in Ukraine. It is stated that the basic prerequisite for the development of an effective system of social and legal protection of platform employees is the creation of a legally regulated system of interaction between subjects of the platform economy, which requires appropriate regulatory, organizational and management support, formalization and exit from the "shadow" of relationships on labor platforms, implementation of mechanisms of sustainable representation of interests of the subjects of the platform economy. The vision of the main characteristics of the effective system of ensuring the legal and social protection of platform workers and priority of key measures to ensure the effectiveness of their social protection process are substantiated. Basing on the generalization of the results of the research conducted, the authors have developed a scheme of conceptualization of the regulatory policy development process, which is focused on the possibility of ensuring the social and legal protection of platform workers. The authors' proposals are consistent with the main guidelines of the proposals for Directive on improving the working conditions in platform work for EU. The authors also defined and substantiated the priority areas of regulatory policy in the context of mitigating the impact of martial law on the labor market and of the prospects for further post-war restoration of Ukraine.