In a letter addressed to the European Commissioner for Employment and Social Rights, Nicholas Schmidt, nine European ministers asked for “An effective, strong, but refutable legal presumption As part of the negotiations on the platform workers’ guidance.
Ministers wantThe adoption of the most ambitious European directive as possible, which strikes the right balance between achieving a real improvement in the working conditions of the people carrying out the work of the platform, regardless of their employment status, and the economic sustainability of the platformsHe reads the message seen by EURACTIV.
Platform workers work for an organization that provides specialized services using an online platform, such as an Uber or various food delivery services.
The letter is dated October 14 and addressed to Commissioner Schmidt and Marian Gorica, Minister of Labor of the Czech Republic, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Among the signatories are the ministers of social affairs and employment in Belgium, Slovenia, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands and Portugal. This letter is a reaction to the orientation of the file under the leadership of the Czech Republic.
These countries had already expressed their concerns about the first compromise text presented by the Czech presidency in mid-September, which proposed not to be bound by the legal premise if “existingThat this assumption will be refuted in judicial and administrative proceedings.
A new compromise text, released by the Czech presidency last week and discussed at the technical level in the EU Council on Monday (17 October), confirmed the desire to make the launch of the legal presumption of employment more complex.
“Placing limitations or exceptions to this legal presumption will only perpetuate the imbalance that exists today between Platforms and the people doing the Platform business.“Ministers warned, emphasizing that this could create more”forged” self employed.
Instead, the legal presumption of employment should be activated according to “Clear and transparent rules and mechanismsThey wrote, in an effort to level the playing field across the EU and provide legal certainty across borders for workers and platforms.
The latest settlement, reported by EURACTIV last week, raised the threshold for moving the hiring assumption for platform workers. He still did not remove the exemptions, although he toned down the legal wording somewhat.
The letter also talks about the importance of “Reaffirm the representation rights of people who perform work on the platform“, which includes sharing data and information for platform workers to organize”correctlyAlgorithms andstimulating collective bargaining“.
Explicit references to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, EU Data Privacy Regulation) and Transparent Algorithm Management Regulations should also be added to the directive text – which reflects the latest Czech language compromise.
