The defense of the company and its ex-leaders made two “happy” deliveries, Tuesday, March 8, to show (not always successfully) their absence of “subordination link” with the platform.
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Those who attract a political debate eclipsed by the war in Ukraine should come to attend the hearing that opened, Tuesday, March 8, in front of the 31st Chamber of the Criminal Court of Paris. In the warned bench, three ex-leaders of the Deliveroo platform, and the company itself as a legal person, to which he is criticized to use “self-employed” – couriers – who, independent, n ‘ would have the name but would present the immense advantage for the company to avoid social charges.
Faced with them, more than a hundred couriers or former couriers who have formed civil parties to ask the justice to recognize the “subordination link” which binds them to the platform and impose the same duties but none Rights recognized to employees. The Penal Code describes this offense of “concealed work”. We are at the heart of the debate on the “uberization” of employment, whose stakes are not escaping any of the parties. And this is the first time he is worn before a criminal jurisdiction.
At the beginning are complaints filed by couriers, supplemented by the surveys of several regional labor and employment directorates and the Central Office for the fight against illegal labor and by reports of the inspection of the Work for the years 2015 and 2017. The dates are important, they cover the period that saw the advent of these platforms – Deliveroo-France was born in 2015 – and several regulatory adjustments have been intervened since. For this period, the URSSAF estimated at 6.4 million euros the amount of the social contributions evaded.
Two questions
Two questions are laid at the Correctional Court: from 2015 to 2017, was it only a platform for “connecting” between customers and restaurateurs, or did it organize a real Home meal delivery service? Was the contract for couriers a provision of services or constituted a diversion of labor law?
On the first day of the trial – it is planned until March 16 – witnesses have sketched the complexity of the debate. The first, Arnaud Mias, cited by the Prosecution, teaches sociology at Paris-Dauphine University and participated in research on the functioning of these platforms, including Deliveroo. From the interviews conducted with deliverymen, he distinguishes among them three categories: those who see in this “playful and sporty activity, without the constraint of a boss, the assets of a student job” offering them to finance out and Hobbies ; “passionate about cycling”, including the highest criticisms with respect to platforms; and a third population, “in social and economic situation very degraded”, coming to this courier experience because it is “the only one to be easily accessible and without training” and which expresses the satisfaction of having “at least a job “.
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