The European Parliament approved European legislation on Wednesday to strengthening the rights of digital platform workers like Uber or Deliveroo. The text plans to reclassify as employees many people currently working under self-employed status as vehicle drivers or delivery men. But the terms of these requalifications remain vague and dependent on national regulations even though the text was supposed to establish a harmonized European framework guaranteeing legal certainty.
The law was validated by a very large majority (554 votes for, 56 against, 24 abstentions). A political agreement between negotiators from Member States and Parliament was painfully reached at the beginning of March, without France and Germanyon this text which was the subject of intense lobbying by the companies concerned. The European Commission estimates that “at least 5.5 million”, out of a total of nearly 30 million, are the number of platform workers wrongly registered as self-employed and therefore unfairly deprived of the social benefits of employment.
“Legal presumption” of employment
Initially, the text proposed at the end of 2021 by the Commission created a presumption of employment on the basis of objective criteria unified at EU level: the fact that a platform sets remuneration levels, remotely supervises services, does not does not allow its employees to choose their schedules or refuse missions, imposes the wearing of uniforms, or even prohibits them from working for other companies…
But the compromise ultimately adopted renounces this list, leaving a great deal of autonomy to the Member States. A “legal presumption” of employment will have to be introduced into each of the 27 legal systems of the member countries. It will be triggered when facts demonstrate “control” of workers by the company. But these facts will be established “according to national law and national collective agreements, having regard to EU case law”.
