Home » Rider, EU: new rules and safeguards for digital platform workers

Rider, EU: new rules and safeguards for digital platform workers

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BRUSSELS – In a business context in full turmoil, also due to the viral pandemic, the European Commission presented on Thursday 9 November here in Brussels awaited proposals to better regulate work on digital platforms, from Deliveroo to Uber. The aim is to protect workers who in recent years have been at the mercy of serious regulatory uncertainty, which many companies, large and small, have taken advantage of.

«We must exploit the employment potential of digital platforms as much as possible – said Employment Commissioner Nicolas Schmit -. But we must also make sure that they are quality jobs, that do not promote precariousness, so that these workers enjoy a certain security and can plan their future (…) Technological progress must be fair and inclusive “(see Il Sole / 24 Hours of September 28).

The classification of workers

The proposals presented by Commissioner Schmit first of all envisage a directive that should make it possible to guarantee individual workers a correct status. There are currently 28 million Europeans working for 500 different internet platforms. According to the European Commission, 5.5 million of them are not correctly classified, ie they are freelancers when in reality they are employees (see Il Sole / 24 Ore of 7 November). “For those who are reclassified as workers – explains the community executive – this means the right to a minimum wage (where it exists), collective bargaining, the protection of working hours and health, the right to paid holidays or a better access to protection against accidents at work, unemployment and sickness benefits, as well as contributory old-age pensions’.

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Of the five criteria, it is enough to respect two of them for the person to be considered an employee. It will be a question of verifying whether or not there is a determination of the salary or a salary ceiling; if there is supervision of work through electronic means; if there are restrictions on working hours or on the holiday period and on the transfer of the commitment made to third parties; if there are binding labor rules to be guaranteed; or restrictions on the possibility of expanding one’s clientele. In fact, the parameters must serve to assess the degree of control of the company over the work of the individual. The control will be carried out by the national authorities.

A barrier to the power of algorithms

According to the proposed directive, the single platform will be able to reject the outcome of the new classification, but will have the burden of proof in explaining that the worker remains a freelancer, and is not a classic employee. Conversely, even the individual worker will be able to reject the result of the reclassification, being able in this case to count on the help of the same platform to clarify. Among the proposals, the European Commission has also included rules to prevent algorithms from putting legitimate conditions at risk of work for both freelancers and employees. Human control is foreseen, which can correct in case the result obtained by the algorithm. In this case, the goal is to avoid computer formulas deciding the workload, the evaluation of the commitment, the imposition of sanctions or the distribution of incentives.

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