In Strasbourg on the evening of Monday, 12 December, members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Employment (EMPL) finally gave Elisabetta Gualmini, the European Parliament’s rapporteur on the directive on digital platform workers, a comfortable majority.
By 41 votes to 12 (some ECR and EPP MEPs as well as one Renew Europe MEP—Abir Al-Sahlani of Sweden—voted against it), MEPs thus supported the agreement that had been reached with shadow rapporteurs in early December. The Council of the EU, for its part, had not been able to come to an agreement on 8 December (see EUROPE 13080/16).
The text supported in the EMPL Committee is more ambitious than the proposal for a directive that the European Commission presented at the end of 2021 in that it has eliminated the proposed criteria for triggering a presumption of employment. Workers who believe that they are incorrectly [classified as] self-employed will be able to apply this presumption, as will a trade union or a national authority. In the event of a dispute between the platform and a worker, it will also be up to the platform—and not the worker—to prove that it does not employ the worker and that the worker is genuinely self-employed.
Here MEPs introduced a list of non-mandatory criteria for determining a worker’s employment status, such as a fixed salary, defined working hours and work time, rating systems, monitoring or supervising a worker, rules on appearance or conduct, restricted options to work for a third party, or restricted freedom to choose accident insurance or a pension scheme.
Member States may take these criteria into account, but the final compromise indicates that the definitions of subordination against which rebuttals of the presumption would be made would remain national, a concession the MEP made during the negotiations.
With regard to algorithmic management, MEPs want to prevent automated systems from making important decisions and want Member States to ensure that there is human oversight of all decisions that significantly affect working conditions.
Platforms will also be required to assess the impact of decisions made or supported by automated monitoring and decision-making systems on working conditions, health and safety, and fundamental rights. To strengthen the position of workers, MEPs also introduced provisions that aim to increase the exchange of information among labour, social protection, and tax authorities in cross-border cases as well as intensify dissuasive sanctions.
With respect to the scope, the rules are expected to apply to all digital labour platforms operating in the EU, and platforms providing outsourcing or task allocation for a large number of clients online (crowdwork or microwork platforms) have been included. The European Parliament explains that ride-hailing digital labour platforms are covered by the new rules, but taxi dispatch services are not.
Disappointed platforms
“The goals of the Platform Work Directive were to provide legal certainty for independent platform workers and improve their working conditions [...]. The report approved yesterday fails to deliver on either objective and instead, if supported [...] through later decision-making stages, would drastically limit the ability Europeans have available to them to earn [a living] through flexible work”, Delivery Platforms Europe (DPE) stated in response.
“This report does not reflect what the vast majority of platform workers want and would interfere with national employment definitions, meaning increased legal uncertainty.”
The text will be presented at the January plenary session. If there are no objections for 24 hours, the mandate will be confirmed. Otherwise, a vote will have to be held.
Link to the adopted text: https://aeur.eu/f/4mr (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)