European trade unions and several other workers’ organisations published a “joint plea” to the European institutions on 25 October for an “effective” directive on improving working conditions in the context of platform work.
Reacting to the latest developments in the Council of the EU and ahead of the vote in the European Parliament Committee on Employment and Social Affairs at the end of November, these organisations are asking the co-legislators to put right several things.
They are already advocating the removal of the criteria for activating the presumption of employment. The onus should be on the platform alone to “activate the rebuttal of the presumption” without leaving “this activation on the shoulders of the workers or the administrative or judicial authorities”.
“Open-ended criteria should therefore help rebut the presumption, not activate it.” Similarly, “the limitation of the presumption of employment relationship to only those workers bringing their cases to the relevant administrative or judicial body would result in situations in which two or more workers doing the same work for the same digital labour platform would enjoy different employment statutes”.
Furthermore, the proposed directive should prevent digital work platforms from developing their own unilateral private protection schemes. The directive must therefore not allow the creation of “a third category of workers”.
Link to the letter: https://aeur.eu/f/3vr (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)