Saturday, February 17, 2024

Will a watered-down EU law improve conditions for gig workers?

Negotiators have finally struck a deal after revisiting the European Union's rules on platform work. But for Uber drivers, Deliveroo riders and others in the gig economy, concessions that diluted the reforms mean the future remains precarious – especially in France.


Issued on: 17/02/2024 - 
Delivery riders wait for orders at Universitat square in Barcelona, Spain, on February 26, 2021. © REUTERS / ALBERT GEA

By:Jan van der Made

The draft law shifts the onus to each EU country to decide if gig workers count as employees – a status that grants them more rights.

Over the last decade, apps that connect customers with services have taken cities by storm. Order food from Deliveroo or Uber Eats, grab a ride with Uber or Bolt. Click the app and off you go. For many, it's become a way of life.

But the 28 million app workers in Europe – expected to rise to 43 million in two years – working across 500 platforms are poorly protected and lack labour rights compared to people in traditional employment.

The provisional deal reached earlier this month between the European Parliament and European Council may oblige EU countries to establish a "presumption of employment" to correct the power imbalance between the worker and the app.

But this deal – a watered-down version of an earlier proposal – has not made everyone happy.

Downfalls of the digital transition

The economic power of these apps skyrocketed in 2020-22, when many daily tasks became difficult during the Covid pandemic. People resorted to online services and trade boomed. Income from digital platforms grew some 500 percent.

But workers sweating on their delivery bikes or behind the wheels of their Ubers didn't share in the profits.

The EU's Platform Work Directive, first presented in 2021, seeks basic protections for such workers.

"If they decide not to go to work one day or to shorten the working time, they will go lower on the ranking."
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"If they decide not to go to work one day or to shorten the working time, they will go lower on the ranking."

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REMARK by Livia Spera General Secretary of the European Transport Workers Federation in Brussels

Jan van der Made


Although most workers are "correctly classified", up to 5.5 million risk misclassification as self-employed – when in fact they only work for one employer. This means they "face poor working conditions and inadequate access to social protection", the parliament was told.French food delivery workers to get minimum wage

"What we'd like to have is the presumption of employment," Livia Spera, general secretary of the European Transport Workers Federation (ETF), told RFI.

"At the moment, workers of most platforms – Uber, Uber Eats, Deliveroo, etc – are considered 'autonomous' because the companies say they don't do regular hours.

"But they respond to their requests. They wear their clothes. And they're not free to choose, because if they decide not to go to work one day or to shorten the working time, they will go lower on the ranking."

A Deliveroo delivery rider pushes a bicycle in London, UK
© REUTERS / TOBY MELVILLE

With de-ranking, workers risk losing work or being disconnected from the app.

Some workers make claims in court, but trials are costly and the outcome isn't guaranteed. Many cases involve people with immigrant backgrounds without full "access to their rights", says Spera.

This type of system also opens doors for "gangmasters" to recruit people without papers to work under someone else's name, she notes.
Gig auctions

Conditions for gig economy workers vary across EU member states.

"Some are acting more fairly than others, but some are using loopholes," Spera says. In one case, ETF discovered that one Portuguese platform was deploying a dubious "auction" function.

"They say: 'I want this food delivered'. And then the riders have to respond to the auction to say: 'I'm available at that price'," Spera explains.

She adds that some platforms experiment with employment models but "suffer from competition because their prices are higher".

Logos for various delivery apps on a mobile phone screen. © SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Reclassifying gig workers as employees would grant rights such as a minimum wage, collective bargaining and social protections, aligning them with conventional employees.

But the proposed reforms have faced scrutiny from all sides: platforms worry about potential costs, while governments are wary about new administrative burdens coming from the gig economy.

French opposition

Under last year's original proposal, platform workers in Europe could be reclassified as employees if they met two of five criteria determining a platform's control over remuneration, appearance, performance, organisation of work and the freedom to work for others.

But France objected, leading a pack of other countries opposing the deal.

In December, French Labour Minister Olivier Dussopt said that "massive reclassifications" would impact "self-employed workers who value their self-employed status". Deliveroo in France ordered to pay substantial fine for not declaring 'gig economy' workers

After negotiations in early February, the rehashed proposal removed all criteria. Now it will be up to each member state to define what makes a worker an employee.

Spera says the previous provisions were the "bare minimum".

According to her, of the initial five criteria, "just one would be enough: if you are an employee, you are an employee".

The logo of car-sharing app Uber on a smartphone in front of a taxi lane in a street in Madrid on December 10, 2014. REUTERS/Sergio Perez

But the latest version of the directive risks fragmentation in the EU's single market, since it does not set bloc-wide criteria.

EU member states now have to ratify the proposal before it can become law, a process Spera expects to begin shortly.

According to the Gig Economy Project, a media network for gig workers in Europe, even if approved, the new law won't end the battle for better working conditions.

"Once countries' establish their own presumptions of employment, expect it to be tested by unions if it's weak and by platforms if it's strong," its co-ordinator Ben Wray warns.

"The same arguments... over the past three years over what criteria, how much criteria and whether to have criteria at all (or a general presumption) will now shift to all of the capitals of Europe."

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