Elisabetta Gualmini (S&D, Italian) is the European Parliament’s rapporteur on the directive on working conditions for workers on digital platforms. Ahead of Monday 12 December’s scheduled vote in the Committee on Employment (EMPL), she explains to EUROPE the main terms of the agreement just reached with the shadow rapporteurs. She also comes back on the “unacceptable” character of the lobbying of this text. (Interview by Solenn Paulic)
Agence Europe - The vote in the EMPL committee has been postponed to 12 December. Do you now have a stable agreement and are you confident about this vote?
Elisabetta Gualmini - Yes, we do have a deal at the level of shadow rapporteurs and I am very grateful to the other rapporteurs because it was difficult.
I think we have a very balanced text and very clear. There is only one reservation with Renew Europe, the rapporteur agreed with the text. But she needs to double check with her group. But we are pretty optimistic.
First of all, I want to underline that never in my political experience - have I seen such really extreme attempts to influence the activity of the legislator, spreading out from the very beginning a complete false narrative about the content of our proposal that there was an automatic reclassification of all workers working with platforms and from day one.
And there was extreme activity of lobbying, we saw lobbyists everywhere in the Parliament, we have seen amendments evidently written by lobbyists.
Now I really can say that it was unacceptable.
What are the main parts of the European Parliament deal?
There is an obsession with the status of the platform workers which I don’t really understand because the most innovative part of the European Parliament proposal is the one concerning algorithms and personal data protection of the workers. Last October, a 26-year-old Italian bicycle delivery man died in Tuscany and he was dismissed with an email to the family after he was dead. We are at this point!
The fact that the workers need to have a peer to peer relationship, a human person they can rely on, the fact that algorithms can be discussed in collective bargaining and that machines cannot take important decisions concerning the professional life of workers.
Of course, on the status, the main goal of the directive is to correct and fight bogus false self-employment, because we think that bogus self-employment brings unfair competition among the platforms. We want to protect workers, in particular the most vulnerable category of workers. But we also want to protect good employers and the genuine self-employed.
And what is really funny is that we received just yesterday a lot of letters coming from self-employed people working with platforms saying that they are very happy that with much clarity we say that a worker is either an employee or a genuine self-employed worker. And that the important thing is to demonstrate this through objective conditions.
On the status, we have built a general framework: there is the legal presumption of the employment relationship which can be rebutted, so the legal presumption is relative. There is no automatic classification. Platforms can rebut the legal presumption by demonstrating that they operate with genuine self-employed workers. There is a reversal of the burden of proof and this is an improvement.
Up to now, if one worker wants to demonstrate in front of the judge that he is an employee and not self-employed, he has to bring evidence. It is on the shoulders of the workers. Now it is up to the platforms to bring evidence that they operate with genuine self-employed workers. And it is up to national authorities from social security institutions or to labour inspection authorities to trigger the presumption in case there is a doubt or to verify that something is wrong.
It is up to national authorities, or to trade unions, or, as a last resort, to the worker to eventually argue their status as self-employed. And there is no “third” category of workers.
On the rebuttable presumption, we say that the platform has to demonstrate that the workers are really self-employed based on a European framework with criteria defining control and direction that are no longer mandatory. And there is now a reference to the national legislation. We think it is better to have criteria at the end of the process, when authorities have to decide whether to reclassify or not.
The other important thing is that there is no extension of the scope of the directive. Our wish would have been to make the directive effective for all workers working with algorithms, not only platforms, but we renounced to it in a spirit of compromise.
We also have new provisions on “class action” so that trade unions can represent the collective interests of platform workers.
The last part of the deal concerns the suspensive effect of a reclassification procedure. We say that once an administrative or judicial decision has been taken to reclassify a worker as employee, if the company decides to challenge this decision, this will not affect the reclassification.
The autonomy of the social partners and the importance of collective agreements are also underlined everywhere. So I think we have a very good text and a balanced one.
The Czech Presidency has so far failed to secure an agreement in the EU Council. Is this a positive development after all?
The proposal by the Czech presidency was not acceptable for us, very much below the Commission’s proposal.
We hope that the EU Council reaches a good balanced agreement because otherwise there will be no room for negotiation to achieve a good directive which really protects both workers and good employers and the self-employed.
I really hope there will be a better agreement.
The new Italian government has not yet taken a position. The previous one was quite “protective” of platform workers. What are your thoughts on that?
It is really a matter of time now. I haven’t spoken with members of the government. But I don’t believe that there will be huge problems on this because I think that there is also a “social rights soul” in this government.
I hope that they will be in favour of this effort.