PodCatt - Università Cattolica

Origami

Education EN ↓ 6 episodes

When we think of digital labour platforms, we usually picture drivers and couriers. But what happens when the workers are domestic cleaners and caregivers? This podcast presents the findings of ORIGAMI – Home Care Digital Platforms and Industrial Relations, a project that mapped digital platforms in the home care sector across six European countries, analysing their organisation and working conditions.

Author

PodCatt - Università Cattolica

Episodes

Platforms, Home Care, and the Limits of Formalisation: Evidence from the Netherlands 15.12.2025 12:09

In this episode of The Origami Podcast , Wike Been (University of Groningen) discusses the role of digital platforms in the Dutch home care and household services sector. The conversation explores how the lack of formal sector recognition, widespread undeclared work, and fragmented regulation shape platform business models and labour conditions. Drawing on the Helpling court case, the episode hig...

Platform Work Meets Care Regimes: Lessons from the French Debate 10.12.2025 16:42

How do national care regimes influence the way digital platforms enter, organise and transform the home care sector? In this episode, Clémence Ledoux and Nicole Teke (University of Nantes) unpack the role of institutional frameworks in shaping platform business models across Europe. Drawing on comparative evidence from the ORIGAMI project, they show how differences in funding schemes, regulatory i...

EU Policy Brief: Regulating Platform-Mediated Care Work 04.12.2025 17:56

This episode features Slavina Spasova and Ilda Durri from the European Social Observatory discussing how EU policies are reshaping long-term care and platform-mediated home care work. They explore how platformisation amplifies existing challenges in the sector—unstable earnings, unpredictable schedules, limited representation and blurred responsibilities—and how the new Platform Work Directive...

Diana Dovgan (CECOP) on Cooperatives, Care Services, and Platform Alternatives 26.11.2025 13:10

In this episode of the Origami Project Podcast, Diana Dovgan, Secretary General of CECOP , discusses the role of cooperatives in Europe’s evolving care ecosystem. She highlights how worker-owned and multi-stakeholder cooperatives can enhance service quality through democratic governance and stronger worker involvement. Dovgan also examines the challenges and potential of cooperative approaches to...

Samantha Howe (EPSU) on Trade Unions and Platform Care Workers 20.11.2025 13:45

In this episode of the Origami Project Podcast, Samantha Howe from the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) discusses the fast-growing yet vulnerable workforce of home care workers employed through digital platforms. She explores the urgent need to enforce the EU Platform Work Directive, the challenges unions face in organizing isolated and often migrant workers, and the strategies...

Caroline Murphy (University of Limerick) on Digital Care Platforms in Ireland 17.11.2025 14:16

In this episode of the Origami Project Podcast, Caroline Murphy, Associate Professor of Employment Relations at the University of Limerick, explores how digital care platforms are emerging within Ireland’s evolving welfare and care landscape. She discusses the pressures of an ageing population, the rise of private and platform-based actors, and the challenges faced by caregivers, families, and pol...