In a tweet on Monday 12 June, the S&D group in the European Parliament, which counts Italian rapporteur Elisabetta Gualmini as a member, cautiously welcomed the agreement reached the previous day in the Council of the EU on the directive on workers on digital platforms (see EUROPE 13199/1), saying that the Member States’ mandate was “far from our position and our ambition”, while the Parliament had removed the mandatory criteria for triggering the presumption of salaried status.
“Finally, we can start negotiating, but there is still a long way to go to ensure adequate protection for platform workers”, added the group, which wants to finalise the legislation during this term.
French MEP and shadow rapporteur for La Gauche, Leïla Chaibi (France), also criticised the Council’s mandate, which “sabotages” the presumption of salaried status.
For the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), while the EU ministers have taken an “important step” towards the next phase of negotiations, “improvements are needed”, as workers “will have to meet three of the seven criteria to be reclassified as employees, which means that there would be no ‘right to employment’”.
“The national derogations requested by the Member States also create a dangerous precedent that could easily lead to a loophole allowing platforms to evade their responsibilities towards workers”, adds the ETUC. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)