The changes proposed by the European Commission to the working status of those working on food distribution platforms and customer and driver interface applications would mean much higher costs for the digital economy sector. The proposals concern that employees will not be considered as self-employed, but as employees with a dependent employment relationship, while The Commission intends in this move to improve their labor rights.
Companies, if these plans are approved, will have to pay up to an additional 4,5 billion euros a year, such as the EU calculates. The draft came to the attention of the Bloomberg news agency and predicts that millions of employees in companies such as Uber Technologies, Deliveroo and Bolt will be entitled to a minimum wage and insurance coverage. There is also the possibility of an additional 3,8 million employees being certified as self-employed. The proposal translates into an annual cost of 4,5 billion for platforms and an increased revenue of 4 billion for Member States.
As expected, digital platforms oppose the European Commission's proposals which, they claim, will result in massive job losses. Months ago, Spain decided to classify food distribution workers as postmen, which led Deliveroo to withdraw from the Spanish market. Other competitors decided to limit their activities. Making a risk assessment, the European Commission said in a report that it was not possible to estimate potential job losses and that changes in the rules might adversely affect employee flexibility. In addition, these rules are likely to lead to higher costs for food delivery and driver-passenger interface applications, as the Commission has emphasized that "consumers may be required to pay part of the increased platform costs" if implemented. the new framework.
In a comment on the social network twitter, the food distribution company JustEatTakeaway, the largest of its kind in Europe, states that it supports the Commission's proposal for the improvement of working conditions and the insurance of employees. According to the European Commission, its proposals are also the most effective way to improve the working conditions of employees on the platforms and to be subject to welfare status, while the Member States will have an increase of 4 billion euros in tax revenues and insurance contributions on an annual basis .
The proposals will be made public next week and include, among other things, any person whose work is controlled by a digital platform can consider themselves an employee, regardless of how they are registered in the employment contract. It will then be up to the platforms themselves to prove that that person has no employee relationship with them. The Commission's proposals will, if accepted, address activities that meet two of the five criteria set: to set employees' pay, to set standards of appearance and behavior, to control the quality of work, to limit acceptability or rejection of work or to limit the possibility for employees to create a clientele.
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