The change of position, at the last minute, of the Governments of Greece and Estonia has today made it possible to save the new European directive that will regulate the rights of workers on digital platforms, a kind of community ‘riders law’ that was on the verge of decaying due to the obstacles to the approval of the final text, already in injury time, by France and Germany. Berlin has finally abstained (the Liberal Party, a partner in the Government coalition, opposes the law while the Socialists and Greens support it) and Paris has voted against, but the “last minute surprises” with which they have reached the quote Estonia and Greece have allowed the Union Ministers of Employment and Social Affairs to ratify the agreement, a watered down version of the original proposal.
According to EU calculations, around 30 million people will be able to benefit from this directive. Its objective is to improve working conditions on digital platforms such as Uber or Glovo, as well as reduce the number of false self-employed workers in these companies. The final text is less ambitious than the initial proposal of the European Commission or the compromise that the Spanish presidency of the Council negotiated in December since, in the face of the French Government’s firm opposition to the text, the Belgian presidency of the Council proposed in February to soften the law through different concessions that affect the criteria to determine whether a worker is truly self-employed or should be reclassified as an employee.
“It is not a perfect agreement,” admitted during the public debate prior to the vote, the second vice president and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz, who during the Spanish presidency of the Council, in the second half of 2023, tried in vain to carry out the European directive to establish a minimum ceiling of protection of rights in the EU, even if it were lower than that offered by national legislation. That is why the Spanish Government has wanted to position itself with “the Europe that advances”, as opposed to “the one that blocks”, she has defended. In the end, the debate is “whether those who side with the multinationals win” or whether “social Europe, the best Europe we know,” prevails, Díaz told the press before the meeting.
The final text of the directive allows workers on digital platforms to invoke the legal presumption of employability if they believe they are misclassified, which will force the company in question to demonstrate that there is no employment relationship, for which it will be assessed whether There is a mechanism for supervision and control of their work, the national laws of each country, the collective agreements and the jurisprudence of the European Justice, a less automatic system than the one initially proposed by the Commission. The directive provides that workers must be informed of the use that companies make of algorithms to track their activity, and prohibits the use of automated monitoring systems, as well as making decisions based on biometric data or their psychological state or through automated procedures without human supervision.
