Rain or shine, digital platform workers deliver our food and transport us whenever we call them. MEPs voted overwhelmingly to demand that the European Union guarantee them better rights, including leave and health care.
“There are now 23 million people working for these platforms. We therefore need clear regulations to protect them, so as not to consider them as another category of workers. They should have the same rights. We should no longer have these differences in the European Union, by introducing a statute where they are not self-employed, nor employees. We need a strong signal“, explains Tilly Metz (Les Verts), Luxembourg MEP.
Earlier this week, a Dutch court ruled that Uber’s drivers are company employees and therefore deserve the rights that come with them. In May, however, the company issued a statement claiming that forcing it to take drivers as employees would be a huge compromise, removing virtually every aspect of the flexibility that has led many application workers to choose this type of work.
Unions react
For their part, the unions believe that it is important to do things right. “For us, there is nothing innovative about paying people below the minimum wage, without social protection and without labor rights. And besides, it is also the people who need the most income who work for these platforms. So many young people who are entering the labor market, but also the most precarious, those who have known unemployment for a long time“, details Ludovic Voet, Confederal Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation
The vote of the European Parliament means that the Commission will draw up a directive on this issue. Digital platform workers will therefore experience a major change in their rights within the European Union.
Reference-feedproxy.google.com