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AUTHOR PROFILE

Agnieszka Piasna

Agnieszka Piasna

Agnieszka Piasna is senior researcher in economic, employment and social policies at the European Trade Union Institute in Brussels, focused on job quality, labour-market policies and regulation, working time and gender issues. She co-ordinates research in the framework of the ETUI project on contingent and platform work.

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Migrant labour in the ‘gig’ economy: progress or trap?

Agnieszka Piasna and Wouter Zwysen

Platform work is often presented as a stepping-stone for migrant workers. It may not however feel so benign to them.

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Digitalisation and job quality—the evidence

Agnieszka Piasna

The impact of digitalisation on work is uneven—but more positive where workers are protected by institutional arrangements.

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Organising and bargaining in the platform economy

Agnieszka Piasna

Unions have the capacities to mobilise and represent platform workers and connected workforces in non-standard work forms.

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The ‘freedom’ to work for nothing

Valeria Pulignano and Agnieszka Piasna

Irregular pay is one of the criticisms levelled at platform companies. But some of the time there is no pay at all.

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What should a female career and family structure post-pandemic look like?

Agnieszka Piasna

The pandemic threatens to exacerbate gender inequalities and reinforce the association between women and unpaid care—unless contrary action is taken.

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Gig-life balance?

Agnieszka Piasna

Impossible hours carved out by apps have often been presented as if self-determined ‘flexibility’ on the part of workers.

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Better working conditions, more predictable work—the new EU directive

Agnieszka Piasna

The EU directive on irregular work is a positive step but it struggles with the contradiction of protecting workers from the labour-market risks transferred by capital.

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Where Do We Stand With “More And Better” Jobs In Europe?

Agnieszka Piasna

The European Union has gone a long way since the Lisbon Strategy of 2000 with its “more and better jobs” objective. In parallel with the

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Dispelling Creative Myths On Lower Employment Protection

Agnieszka Piasna and Martin Myant

In the years since the 2008 crisis, 229 employment protection reforms have been imposed across EU member states (see here). There has been a strong

S&D Group in the European Parliament Advertisement

S&D conference The Middle East at crossroads: A progressive vision, 9 September 2026, European Parliament, Brussels

S&D conference “The Middle East at crossroads: A progressive vision”

In case you missed it, you can watch the replay of the S&D Group’s conference “The Middle East at crossroads: A progressive vision” by clicking the button below, and read the press release and opinion piece.

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Cover of the ETUI report Climate change and workers’ health: protecting workers against heat and other climate-related hazards, by Marouane Laabbas-el-Guennouni and Andreas D. Flouris.

New Report - Climate change and workers’ health

After a summer marked by repeated heatwaves across Europe, this publication tackles an increasingly urgent issue: workplace heat exposure, now one of the leading climate-related threats to workers' health. The report identifies the sectors and workers most at risk, and calls for a dedicated EU directive to strengthen and harmonise their protection.

READ HERE

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EurofoundTalks podcast with Mary McCaughey and Eszter Sandor: Is financial resilience and trust in Europe faltering?

Is financial resilience and trust in Europe faltering?

In this episode of Eurofound Talks, host Mary McCaughey and senior researcher Eszter Sandor unpack the results of the 2025 Living and Working in the EU e-survey. While headline inflation has stabilised at 2.1%, the data reveals a continent gripped by chronic precariousness, with 57% of respondents now at risk of depression. Mary and Eszter explore how this economic insecurity is impacting institutional trust and democratic engagement.

LISTEN HERE

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Cover of The Progressive Post issue 31, Summer 2026: The Mediterranean, a crowded sea.

The Summer issue of The Progressive Post is out! 

The EU is belatedly awakening to a changing Mediterranean sea, where more assertive regional powers are reclaiming a role.

The new issue of the magazine also reflects on how we struggle to keep pace with AI innovations, examines the uncertainties surrounding the execution of the Pact on Migration and Asylum and the risk to human rights posed by the Return Regulation, and focuses on the EU Commission's newly proposed Industrial Accelerator Act.

READ THE MAGAZINE

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WSI blog series “Climate Transition: Socially Just and Fair”: Equality in the labour market – the challenges of the socio-ecological transformation, by Silke Bothfeld and Peter Bleses

Equality in the labour market: the challenges of the socio-ecological transformation

In order to ensure that the socio-ecological transformation is gender-equitable, a strategy for expanding services must be combined with better working conditions.

READ HERE

FES Advertisement

Cover of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung analysis The Capability State: A Progressive Vision for the 21st Century by Henning Meyer.

“What is the actual purpose of the state?” – this central question is the focus of the analysis. At a time when bureaucratic processes are making life difficult for citizens, the paper proposes a three-part model. It aims at a conception of the state as a platform that helps society build the capabilities it needs to address its problems effectively.

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