The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is concerned about the weakening of the Directive on digital labour platform by the Czech Presidency of the EU Council and has expressed its concern in a letter to EU Social Affairs Ministers and permanent representatives of the EU27, it announced in a statement on Friday 23 September.
The ETUC is concerned about the proposed EU Council mandate presented by the Czech EU Presidency (see EUROPE 13025/13), which “makes the presumption of employment relationship and the eventual reclassification of workers as employees more complicated, adds a new layer of complexity to the application of the legislation and therefore makes the Directive weaker”.
The Commission’s proposal, which provides that an employment relationship can be identified as soon as the worker meets two of the five criteria identified, must already be improved, according to the ETUC, in that it places the activation of the presumption of employment procedure on the employee themselves or on a competent authority.
But the Czech proposal adds a “new layer of complexity” to the recognition of the presumption of an employment relationship and thereby further weakens the Directive. In particular, the Czech compromise provides for a derogation to disregard two specific criteria and excludes certain national authorities from the scope of the Directive.
The text will be discussed on 26 and 27 September in the EU Council’s Social Affairs Group.
According to a European source, the Czech text seems to want to tighten up the conditions for triggering the presumption of salaried status “with three criteria that would have to be met” in the end, instead of two. The Presidency would also seek to place the procedure of presumption of wage-earning solely on the worker, who would have to seek his or her own reclassification, cutting out the administrative stage, the source explained.
Link to the letter: https://aeur.eu/f/38v (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)