Mark MacGann, the ‘Uber files’ whistleblower who revealed in July the aggressive lobbying practices of Uber - the VTC drivers’ platform - to the public authorities, asked, on Tuesday 25 October, the members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL) to do everything possible to maintain an “ambitious” directive on the conditions for digital platforms workers (see EUROPE 12991/24, 13042/16).
This former director of public policy at Uber also denounced the “disproportionate” influence of the platform in European policies, during a committee hearing on the revelations of the ‘Uber files’.
The former lobbyist, who also spent many years lobbying governments to liberalise their legislation and make room for this new economy, was speaking alongside the European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmit, and Uber’s Director of European Affairs, Zuzana Púčikov. The representative of Uber workers, Brahim Ben Ali, came to describe the working conditions of Uber drivers, mentioning in particular the difficulty of recovering personal data after abrupt account closures decreed by the platform.
The European Commissioner denied, in any case, that he had received more input from companies than from workers’ representatives when drafting the directive on platform workers. He kept a balanced approach, he explained, having been in contact “with 28 platforms and 24 workers’ organisations”.
It is normal to talk to all parties, also defended the Commissioner, who insisted that the proposal on the table defends stronger social protection for workers in the sector while preserving the conditions for the development of platforms.
But Nicolas Schmit could not help expressing his concerns about the direction in which the discussions within the EU Council are currently heading. “Our proposal is based on the principle of the (legal) presumption of employment; if this crucial element is watered down, the directive risks losing its impact”, he warned, referring to discussions in the EU Council aimed at watering down this very principle.
The Czech Presidency of the EU Council has submitted compromise proposals tightening up the conditions for triggering the presumption, with a worker now having to tick more criteria to prove that he or she is an employee and not a disguised self-employed person.
“I hope that the European Parliament will rise to the occasion and maintain this principle of presumption”, the Commissioner added.
For Zuzana Púčiková, this debate about Uber is a bit outdated, as the VTC platform “has changed”. “You all know that Uber made mistakes in the beginning, but we communicated and Uber has changed since the end of 2017, this is the Uber I know”, she said, assuring that the company has “strong values”, supports “Ukrainians” and “cares about those who work for us”.
For his part, Mark MacGann insisted that the European social model is precisely Uber’s enemy. “We weaponised both drivers and consumers” to enforceUber’s services “even when they contravened local and national laws”.
Uber has even reportedly had statistics altered to make it look like they are earning close to the minimum wage. The platform, he said, was denying its workers any rights at all because of the “watchword of flexibility”. And the whistleblower is convinced that the presumption of wage-earning status would shift the power back from the “powerful to the powerless”. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)