The Court of Justice of the Valencian Community (TSJCV) has confirmed the ruling of a Court of Valencia that sentenced the Glovo company to pay one million euros corresponding to the Social Security contributions of its delivery workers.
This is stated in a ruling from the Social Chamber of the TSJCV, against which an appeal is possible, which rejects the appeal that Glovo presented to a ruling from the Social Court number 15 of Valencia of December 2022 and condemns to pay the costs to the appellant.
The procedure was opened at the request of the General Treasury of Social Security, after Intersindical reported to the Labor Inspectorate that Glovo had not registered or paid Social Security contributions to its distributors in Valencia.
The Labor Inspection verified that between October 2015 and July 2018 the company had not paid contributions for a total of 610 delivery workers – in different time periods -, so it drew up a report of settlement of contributions for a total of 1,009,325.51 euros.
In the first instance, a court in Valencia upheld the lawsuit filed ex officio by the Social Security Treasury against Glovo and declared the labor nature of the existing contract between the company and 610 co-defendants, which the company appealed.
Faced with the company’s argument, which alleged that the delivery drivers worked autonomously and independently, without an employment relationship, the TSJCV affirms that Glovo “is not a mere intermediary” that brings consumers (customers) and “genuine workers” into contact. “autonomous”, but rather coordinates and organizes the productive service.
The ruling indicates that the company sets the price and conditions of the service, is the owner of the essential assets for carrying out the activity, and uses delivery drivers who “do not have their own and autonomous business organization”, but rather provide their service “inserted into the employer’s work organization, subject to the direction and organization of the platform.”
The delivery person “neither organizes the productive activity on his own, nor negotiates prices or conditions with the owners of the establishments he serves, nor does he receive his remuneration from the final customers”, since he lacks autonomy to do so and is “subject to the organizational guidelines set by the company,” he says.
“This reveals an exercise of business power in relation to the way the service is provided and a control of its execution in real time that shows the concurrence of the dependency requirement inherent to the employment relationship,” indicates the TSJCV.
The ruling states that, from all the facts established in the first instance, it is clear that “a whole series of indications of employment actually occur in the provision of services by riders or glovers, which determine that we are faced with true self-employment relationships.” alien.”
The Valencian high court indicates that in the same sense a significant number of rulings have been pronounced throughout Spain and in relation to the same controversy and the same defendant company, GlovoApp23 SL, as in Asturias, Catalonia, Madrid, the Basque Country, Galicia, Castilla y León, Extremadura or Cantabria.
