Riders, the road to more rights is all uphill. Member states scuttle (one more time) EU directive on digital workers

Brussels – France, Germany, Greece, and Estonia have turned their backs on the more than 28 million European citizens working in the Gig Economy. Another mockery over the finish line for riders, drivers, and all victims of the phenomenon of bogus self-employment. In an agreement already reached in the trialogues between the European Parliament and the EU Council, for the second time, a blocking minority of four member countries stops the EU directive on digital workers’ rights.

“An incomprehensible decision. The European Parliament has a very large majority and will approve the text in the first reading while the governments will take their responsibilities,” said Democratic Party MEP Elisabetta Gualmini, the bill’s rapporteur for the parliament. Indeed, the scenario now becomes more complicated: with European elections just around the corner, most likely, there will not be time for a third trialogue. But the European Parliament may be able to secure its position by readopting the text at first reading, then leaving it in the hands of the next legislature.

The fact remains that, after the first Christmas black smoke, the EU Council scuttled a far less ambitious text, again with the games already played. Although, compared to the 12 member states that had opposed the first agreement, the blocking minority that prevented the directive’s adoption today (Feb. 16) was much smaller. In essence, it was all in Estonia’s hands, as France, Germany, and Greece had already announced they would oppose it. And in the end, the government in Tallinn decided to play into the hands of the digital platforms.

The compromise found on February 8 by the Belgian presidency of the Council of the EU already scaled down the first proposal quite a bit: the most controversial element that came out of the first trialogue was, in fact, the choice of five indicators, at least two of which were mandatory, for the presumption of an employment relationship to be triggered. This constraint had been eliminated: while maintaining the presumption of subordinate employment to put an end to fictitious self-employment, this was to be triggered by the presence of “facts indicating control and direction, according to national legislation and collective agreements in force.” No harmonized criteria among member countries, but an obligation for national governments to “establish a relative legal presumption of employment at the national level.”

No dice for the 5.5 million digital platform workers who the EU estimates are misclassified as self-employed in the 27 member countries, and who suffer, as a result, the denial of labour and social rights: minimum wage (where it exists), collective bargaining, working hours, health and work accident protection, paid vacations, unemployment, sickness and old-age pension.