Gig economy – Photo by Anthony Shkraba from Pexels
(BRUSSELS) – Negotiators from the European Parliament and EU Council reached a provisional agreement Wednesday on a bill to improve the working conditions of persons performing platform work.
More than 500 digital labour platforms are active in Europe, the Commission has found, employing more than 28 million people – expected to reach 43 million by 2025. Digital labour platforms operate in a variety of economic sectors, be it ‘on location’, such as ride-hailing and food delivery drivers, or online with services such as data encoding and translation.
The new directive aims to ensure that people working through digital labour platforms have labour rights and social benefits they are entitled to. The directive outlines measures to correctly determine the employment status of people working through such platforms and promote transparency and fairness in algorithmic management (that is, automated systems supporting or replacing managerial functions).
An estimated 5.5 million people in the ‘gig’ economy are wrongly classified as self-employed and so miss out on key labour and social protection rights. The new rules introduce a presumption of an employment relationship (as opposed to self-employed) which is triggered when two out of a list of five indicators are present. The presumption can be triggered by the worker, their representatives, and competent authorities. This presumption can be rebutted if the platform proves that the contractual relationship is not an employment relationship.
Currently people performing platform work also do not have access to information on how the algorithms work and how their behaviour affects decisions taken by automated systems. With the new rules, platforms need to provide this information.
With the new rules, platforms will not be allowed to take some important decisions such as dismissals or suspension of an account without human oversight.
Platforms will have to assess the impact of decisions taken or supported by automated monitoring and decision-making systems on working conditions, health and safety and fundamental rights.
The new rules will forbid platforms from processing certain types of personal data, such as personal beliefs, private exchanges with colleagues, or when a worker is not at work, and there will be more protective rules on data protection for platform work.
Platforms will also have to transmit information on their self-employed workers to the competent national authorities and such as trades unions.
Under the new law, it will not be possible for a platform to circumvent the rules by using intermediaries, i.e. when workers have a direct contractual relationship with a party other than the relevant digital platform. Member states will have to make sure that platform workers working through intermediaries enjoy the same level of protection as those with a direct contractual relationship.
