The Ministers of Labour, Economy, Employment and Social Affairs of eight Member States wrote to the Czech Presidency of the EU Council and to the European Commissioner for Social Affairs, Nicolas Schmit, on Friday 14 October, to express their differences regarding the direction of the work on the Directive on workers on digital platforms (see EUROPE 13042/16).
While Prague has tightened the legal presumption of employment, the Spanish, Luxembourg, Belgian, Italian, Slovenian, Maltese, Dutch and Portuguese ministers express, in this letter revealed by Politico on 17 October and seen by EUROPE, their wish to adopt a European directive “with the highest degree of ambition that strikes the right balance between achieving a real improvement of the working conditions of people performing platform work, irrespective of their employment status, and making platform work sustainable”.
The current negotiation “offers a unique opportunity to ensure fair and decent working conditions for people working on digital platforms at EU level, including through intermediaries and in cross-border situations”, the letter adds.
These countries representing the social wing of the EU Council on this platform issue insist in particular on maintaining “an effective and strong, but rebuttable, legal presumption of the employment relationship, reflecting the actual control and direction exercised by digital labour platforms”.
They add that “establishing restrictions or derogations from this legal presumption would only perpetuate the existing imbalance between platforms and people performing platform work today, which has led to the existence of thousands of bogus self-employed workers in Europe, and precarious working conditions through the abuse of atypical contracts. In addition, making the triggering of the presumption more difficult could result in greater legal uncertainty”.
Link to the letter: https://aeur.eu/f/3n5 (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)