Mobile phone gig economy -Photo by Anthony Shkraba from Pexels
(BRUSSELS) – EU ministers confirmed Monday an earlier draft agreement on the platform work directive which aims to improve working conditions and regulate use of algorithms by digital labour platforms.
A key aim of the directive is to make the use of algorithms in human resources management more transparent, to ensure that automated systems are monitored by qualified staff and that workers have the right to contest automated decisions. It will also help correctly determine the employment status of persons working for platforms, enabling them to benefit from any labour rights they are entitled to.
The text triesto strike a balance between respecting national labour systems and ensuring minimum standards of protection for the more than 28 million persons working in digital labour platforms across the EU.
Main compromise elements revolve around a legal presumption which will help determine the correct employment status of persons working in digital platforms:
- member states will establish a legal presumption of employment in their legal systems, to be triggered when facts indicating control and direction are found
- those facts will be determined according to national law and collective agreements, while taking into account EU case-law
- persons working in digital platforms, their representatives or national authorities may invoke this legal presumption and claim they are misclassified
- it is up to the digital platform to prove that there is no employment relationship
Member states will have to provide guidance to digital platforms and national authorities when the new measures are being put in place.
The agreement reached between the Council and the European Parliament ensures that workers are kept duly informed about the use of automated monitoring and decision-making systems regarding their recruitment, their working conditions and their earnings, among other things.
It also bans the use of automated monitoring or decision-making systems for the processing of certain types of personal data of persons performing platform work, such as biometric data or their emotional or psychological state.
Human oversight and evaluation are also guaranteed as regards automated decisions, including the right to have those decisions explained and reviewed.
