The proposal for a directive of the European Executive must still be examined by the Member States and the European Parliament. A compromise will be complicated to obtain on this subject which divides the twenty-seven.
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Since his appointment to the Presidency of the Commission, in 2019, Ursula von der Leyen had warned that it wished to strengthen social Europe and mentioned the need to focus on the case of platforms, such as Uber or Deliveroo , where working conditions depend very largely on an algorithm (we do not speak here market places, social networks or rental sites). Thursday, December 9, the Community Executive presented its draft directive to improve working conditions in this growing sector: today, 28 million Europeans work there – EN 2025, they should be 43 million – and, In 90% of cases, they have independent status.
For the time being, few countries have legislated to regulate the labor law of this pan of the digital economy. And when they did, as in Spain, where the meal deliverymen must now be salaried, they did not adopt a measure that concerns the entire sector. The Community Executive wants it to change. He proposes that the self-employed, who make live the platforms, are granted the status of employee, since the relationship that attaches them to their employer installs them in a position of subordination.
For the Commission, a platform “is presumed to be employer and its workers are presumed to be salaried” if it meets two of the following five criteria: it sets remuneration, it oversees the work by an electronic means, it imposes on the Worker his hours of work, she dictates the way he must behave with the customer, she prevents him from working for another client.
“A major advance”
Today, Brussels estimates that 5.5 million deliveries and other drivers listed as independent are not. The 22.5 other million – for example, translators or encoders that are put in contact with their customers through platforms – have a status that does well, and the practice of their activity. “Platforms can change their working conditions, so that the self-employed to whom they appeal to be true independent”, specifies the Commission. They can also (just like their collaborators) challenge or before the administrative authorities this presumption of wage. But the recourse would not be suspensive, and it would be to prove that their collaborators are self-employed.
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