The Constitutional Rights of Labor Economy Workers in the Context of Digital Culture, State Responsibility, and Digital Sovereignty

Abstract

While thelaboreconomy in Indonesia has experienced fast growth on digital platforms, the legal status oflaborworkers remains unclear. They are referred to only as "partners," robbing them of protections given to formal employees. This phenomenon raises constitutional problems, as the 1945 Constitution provides strong guarantees of the right to work, treatment, and social security for every citizen. This study will examine the constitutionality oflaborworker rights from state responsibility and digital sovereignty perspectives, and whether it is necessary to reformlaborlaw in Indonesia. This research uses a normative juridical approach, with qualitative analysis of formal rules, including laws and default rules that apply to court decisions, as well as comparative best practices from other countries, particularly the European Union and the United Kingdom. Such a finding reveals a constitutional void that would produce an architectural mismatch between the proposed constitutional norms and protection forlaborworkers in Indonesia at one end, and on the other is a lack of state presence to regulate the monopolizing practice of digital platforms and the normalizing practices of the precarious nature of digital work culture. The comparative study with the EU and the UK shows that Indonesia is a laggard in ensuring legal certainty. This article develops a new paradigm forlaborers'rights, called "digital constitutional protection," a novel term grounded in progressive legal theory. It makes an academic contribution by advancing a theory of constitutional law and a practical one through proposing adaptive, fair approaches to regulatory reform.