The death of 50-year-old rider Lello Acampora, who died in an accident while on duty in the Naples region, brought the conditions of workers in the sector to the agenda again. Conditions that the Commission and the European Parliament propose to improve across the continent through a law introducing greater rights and protections, as well as tackling the phenomenon of inaccurate VAT figures. However, the proposal was blocked at the final stage after a long process. It was the opposing views of some member states, primarily Italy and France, that led to the loss of final approval of the law. And Paris now also opposes Belgium’s EU presidency using the draft agreement as a starting point for future negotiations.
interim agreement
The interim green light for the first directive, which regulates the performance of digital workers, including drivers and drivers of online platforms (such as Deliveroo and Uber, respectively), came during a tripartite dialogue last December 14, after a troubled two-year legislative process. Describing this as “historic”, the centre-left’s claimed aim was to guarantee greater rights to workers in the sector by countering the widespread phenomenon of so-called “fake VAT figures”, i.e. self-contracting. They were actually hiring workers for people who were working as employees in companies.
Moreover, the matter is not bad at all: the number of affected workers in Europe is approximately 28 million; More than 500 people are employed on digital work platforms and a turnover of 20 billion euros is achieved annually. It is predicted that there will be 43 million digital workers by the middle of the decade: nine tenths of them have VAT contracts, but there will be around 5.5 million fake self-employed workers. A clear legislative framework to defend your rights. Moreover, according to the Commission, approximately 55% of these workers are paid below the minimum hourly wage in the country in which they work.
Legal presumption and algorithms
Therefore, one of the key points of the directive was employee recognition; This was facilitated through some common criteria for all member states, and each state could add new ones. If at least two of these elements were present, the worker could ask the platform employing him to sign a contract as a sub-employee, or if his employer refused to give it to him, he could object, thus eliminating the burden of proof. moved from provider to employer.
These criteria were: maximum limits on the worker’s wage; controls over their work, including electronic means and digital algorithms; controls over the allocation or allocation of tasks; controls on working conditions and restrictions on free choice of working hours; and finally restrictions on the freedom to organize one’s work, as well as certain rules regarding appearance and behavior that must be observed in the workplace.
Additionally, the directive included an obligation on companies to “inspect automated systems by humans to ensure their compliance with working conditions” and gave workers “the right to object to automated decisions, such as the closure or suspension of accounts” used to work. The use of algorithms and artificial intelligence to predict, for example, whether workers plan to strike or join a union is also banned.
Return of the council
But just a week after the agreement, national governments had failed to ratify the directive on 22 December; This dealt a blow to the Spanish presidency, which was about to end its six-month term. While a dozen member states, including France and Italy, opposed the agreement, Germany reportedly avoided discussion.
The most important issue that escapes the attention of the French government (always critical of the law in question) is precisely the legal presumption of full employment, that is, the previously described mechanism by which a worker is assumed to be an employee and to be responsible. can prove otherwise in court to his employer’s work. The criteria for activating the presumption were thought to be too stringent, although in essence they resulted from long negotiations between co-legislators who started from very different positions.
Paris – Brussels
Negotiations between representatives of the Commission, the Council and the Parliament therefore continued in the first weeks of the new year under the Belgian presidency, but Paris was once again opposed to using the text rejected in December as a starting point for new pursuits. a new frame. As the European elections in June approach, the vote in Brussels is setting the stage for a real race against time to secure approval of the directive before the start of the Union’s new political cycle.
Belgium has tried to provide some initiatives to the most critical governments, but it seems that these are not enough. France, in particular, will believe that both Madrid and Brussels have gone beyond the impartial mediation roles required by the rotating presidency and have sided too closely with the workers, to the detriment of the working class. companies.
On the contrary, according to Paris, a more flexible approach will be needed, paying attention to the general needs of the market as well as the characteristics of national legal systems, and the general approach adopted by the Council in June 2023 during the Swedish Presidency will be very few, as will the criteria to be met to trigger the legal presumption. , would also be so general that it would apply to all platforms, regardless of the sector of activity, which would cause harm. “real” self-employed workers.
Source: Today IT
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
