It started as a very ambitious directive and has ended up in limbo. Yesterday, European countries again rejected a European rider law to improve conditions for workers on online platforms. It was the second attempt but in the end it did not obtain the necessary endorsement, especially due to the rejection of France.
Just a week after the institutions of the European Union reached an agreement in principle for the second time on the European rider law, France once again rejected an already very weak regulation, precisely because of the last minute concessions to Paris.
The European Commission proposed a law two years ago inspired in part by Spanish law, which aspired to bring order and legal certainty to the almost 30 million workers of platforms such as Deliveroo or Glovo if a series of conditions were met. Last December, under the leadership of the Spanish presidency of the Council of the EU, an agreement was reached between the European institutions but it was rejected, mainly by France and Germany. Under the agreement, it was approved that a worker was considered an employee if two of five conditions were met. These included the existence of maximum limits on the amount of money that workers can receive or whether there is supervision over the execution of the work.
However, this formula did not convince the French Government and therefore, the Belgian presidency offered to eliminate these conditions and offered an “à la carte” system in which it determined that an employed worker is one if there is a supervision and control mechanism. , in addition to taking into account any regulations based on collective agreements. Likewise, it left it in the hands of the platform to refute the employment relationship with the workers.
Despite the concessions to both France and the platforms, the measure has not convinced and Paris voted against because it insists that the law be regulated according to collective agreements; while Germany – due to divisions in its own Government –, Greece and Estonia have abstained, leaving the law practically adrift and with little chance of succeeding for a third time. “We believe that this directive, which had the objective of being a step forward for this type of workers, has charted a long path. Now we will study the next steps,” lamented the rotating presidency of the Council, held by Belgium. Now they are analyzing a plan B, but due to the short time left for the legislature, barely four months, it is very difficult to propose something different that will convince the countries.
Spain, for its part, did vote in favor, although it added a statement in which it regretted that the directive needed “greater ambition”, since it is far from the spirit of the Executive's initial proposal. In fact, according to the Ministry of Labor, the law that resulted from the negotiations last December was “more respectful of the rights of workers.”
