A network anchor signed a "cooperation agreement" with the company that specifically stated "no labor relationship". However, the two parties were unable to reach an agreement on matters such as changing the live broadcast room, which led to a dispute. The court ultimately ruled that there was a labor relationship between the two parties, and the company was required to pay more than 16000 yuan, which is twice the salary difference of the unsigned labor contract. This is a typical case of labor dispute recently released by the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court in Guangdong Province. According to the results of the 9th National Survey on the Status of the Workforce, the number of new forms of employment workers (hereinafter referred to as "new format workers") in China has reached 84 million, accounting for 21% of the total number of employees. Against the backdrop of the booming development of new formats such as live streaming, food delivery, and ride hailing, platforms deliberately "de labor relations" through protocol design, making it difficult to determine employment and labor relations in new formats. How can workers in new business formats protect their rights? At the recently held first Fumao Labor Law Forum and the unveiling ceremony of Beijing Fumao Law Research Institute, the attending experts combined judicial practice, faced pain points, and explored new ideas. Signing a "cooperation agreement" does not mean that there is no labor relationship. In December 2022, Sun joined a clothing company as an exclusive anchor, and the company signed a "cooperation agreement" with her, which specifically stated "no labor relationship". The cooperation content includes product promotion and sales, and the service fee is 12000 yuan/month and sales commission. Sun needs to live stream according to the schedule every day. If there are less than 26 days per month, the company will deduct her salary. In actual implementation, the company sends a "salary statement" to Sun every month. In July 2023, a dispute arose between the two parties due to unsuccessful negotiations on matters such as changing the live streaming room. Sun requested confirmation of a labor relationship with a clothing company and filed a lawsuit. In the trial, the court held that although a clothing company signed a "cooperation agreement" with Sun, the determination of whether the two parties constitute a labor relationship should still be based on whether they meet the essential characteristics of the labor relationship. In this case, the company arranged for Sun to livestream sales, which is a core business of the company; The company has implemented dominant daily management for Sun's scheduling and attendance; The company also pays a fixed base salary to Sun on a monthly basis. In summary, the company has dominant labor management over Sun, and it should be recognized that there is a labor relationship between the two parties. "Under the employment mode of the Internet platform, although the working time, location and mode of workers in the new business mode are more flexible than those in the traditional working mode, the fundamental relationship between the two parties has not changed. ”In the forum, Professor Zheng Shangyuan from the Law School of Tsinghua University stated that the platform's labor relations are still atypical in nature. Taking food delivery riders as an example, they are subject to platform algorithms, delivery rules, and reward and punishment system management throughout the entire process, possessing obvious economic attributes and not belonging to completely independent civil business entities. The concept of "dominant labor" in judicial practice confirms that the two parties are not equal civil relationships. Professors from the School of Labor Economics at Capital University of Economics and Business believe that the current widespread "de labor relations" in the platform industry is the core obstacle to the rights protection of new forms of workers. He analyzed that on the one hand, the platform will deliberately sever labor relations through protocol design to avoid employment responsibilities such as social security and work-related injuries, and reduce operating costs. On the other hand, the difficulty in determining labor relations is also a result of the combined effects of policy orientation and industry positioning. Due to the long-term role of the platform economy in absorbing employment and stabilizing the economy, the institutional level often tends to weaken the recognition of labor relations, causing a large number of flexible employees to be outside the traditional protection scope of labor law. However, as a fundamental social relationship, labor relations cannot be dissolved by flexible employment. Excessive 'de labor relations' will shake the foundation of social employment order. The path of safeguarding rights should not only be about "confirming labor relations". In response to the difficulty of identifying labor relations in new forms of employment, Shi Fumao, director of Beijing Fumao Law Firm and member of the Legal Advisory Committee of the All China Federation of Trade Unions, proposed that "current workers in new forms of employment do not need to stick to the traditional path of safeguarding rights of" confirming labor relations → identifying work-related injuries ", and should broaden the channels of relief." He suggested that in addition to confirming occupational injuries of personnel in new forms of employment in the 17 pilot provinces, they can rely on civil legal relationships such as tort liability, insurance claims, and platform fault liability to safeguard their rights. For example, in the event of personal injury during work, the platform may be held responsible for errors in algorithm design, security measures, and other aspects in accordance with the Civil Code; For commercial insurance purchased on behalf of the platform, one can directly claim insurance compensation. Professor Ye Jingyi from Peking University Law School believes that the loose and algorithmic employment model of the new business model differs significantly from traditional standard labor relations, resulting in difficulties in identifying labor relations, protecting rights and interests, and resolving disputes in the new business model. At the same time, disputes in new business formats often have the characteristics of small amounts, dispersion, and cross regional differences. Core data such as orders, attendance, and assessments are all controlled by the platform. Traditional rights protection procedures have long cycles and high costs, making them a "roadblock" for workers in new business formats to obtain evidence and fixed evidence. The existing labor legal system is difficult to fully adapt to new employment scenarios such as crowdsourcing and outsourcing. ”In this regard, Ye Jingyi suggests that we should rely on the digital attributes of the platform, accelerate the establishment of a mechanism for fixing, retaining, and accepting electronic evidence, standardize the platform's data retention obligations, strengthen the platform's burden of proof, and use technological means to fill the gaps in evidence for workers in new business formats. The scope agrees with this, and he added, "If we cannot make changes in the recognition of labor relations at this stage, we need to make breakthroughs in the evidence process, that is, fully tilt towards new format workers in terms of labor relations, management rules, etc., and make reasonable inferences that are beneficial to them." Xiao Zhu, Dean of the Law School of China Labor Relations College, reviewed the relevant systems introduced by China in recent years to protect the rights and interests of new format workers. The revised Trade Union Law in 2021 clarified that new format workers have the right to participate in and organize trade unions in accordance with the law, and the "Platform Labor Rules and Algorithm Negotiation Guidelines (Trial)" jointly issued by four departments in 2026 standardized the negotiation of labor rules and algorithms for platform enterprises and their employment cooperation enterprises. However, current collective bargaining still faces four major challenges: traditional mechanisms are difficult to match with high-frequency iterative algorithms, there are significant differences among new types of workers, the negotiation results have insufficient constraints on multi-level cooperative enterprises, and platform data is opaque. ”Xiao Zhu suggested that we should accelerate the improvement of legislation on collective bargaining and democratic management of enterprises, strengthen institutional rigidity constraints, promote the embedding of negotiation results into algorithmic processes, and achieve the coordinated development of individual and collective rights. Is it the only choice to solve the current dilemma by making good use of the existing system and urgently introducing new measures to protect the rights and interests of workers in new forms of employment? In the view of Professor Shen Jianfeng from the Law School of Central University of Finance and Economics, actively promoting legislation is certainly important, but how to make good use of the existing system is also worth paying attention to. Data shows that by the end of 2025, China has established more than 3000 one-stop mediation organizations and built a diversified joint mediation work network covering the whole country. Shen Jianfeng found in his research that when dealing with disputes between food delivery riders and platforms, some one-stop mediation centers in county-level cities will mediate based on the premise of recognizing labor relations. This indicates that "the existing system is not completely ineffective, and problems often stem from insufficient determination in implementing the system". He admitted that the introduction of new systems often takes a long time, and it is necessary to fully utilize and make good use of existing systems. Lou Yu, a professor at the School of Civil and Commercial Law of China University of Political Science and Law and director of the Institute of Social Law, also expressed his opinions from the perspective of local legislation. In his opinion, there is currently no legal or administrative regulation at the national level to regulate the protection of the rights and interests of workers in new business formats, and departmental regulations cannot be directly used as the basis for arbitration and court rulings in various regions. In this context, various regions are exploring the introduction of provincial-level administrative regulations, which are expected to become an important basis for local judicial judgments. In the future, we should adhere to the concept of systematic governance, optimize the rules for determining labor relations, improve convenient and efficient dispute resolution mechanisms, broaden channels for public interest litigation and rights protection, and build a diversified rights protection system with government supervision, platform responsibility, union assistance, and social collaboration. ”Ye Jingyi said. (Looking into the New Era)