Directive (EU) 2024/2831 on improving working conditions in platform work

What it is

to improve the working conditions of people working through digital platforms. PROPOSED ACT: Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council. ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and on an equal footing with the Council. BACKGROUND: the digital transition, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, is shaping the EU economy and its labour markets. Digital labour platforms have become an important part of this emerging new social and economic landscape. Today, more than 28 million people in the EU work through digital labour platforms, and it is estimated that there will be 43 million by 2025. The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs adopted the report by Elisabetta GUALMINI (S&D, IT) on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on improving working conditions in platform work. The committee responsible recommended that the European Parliament's position adopted at first reading under the ordinary legislative procedure should amend the proposal as follows: The report stated that Member States should have appropriate and effective procedures in place to verify and ensure the correct determination of the employment status of persons performing platform work, with a view to applying the presumption of an employment relationship for the purpose of ascertaining the existence of such a relationship as defined by applicable law, collective agreements or practice in force in the Member States. A person performing platform work should be either a platform worker or a genuinely self-employed person . The contractual relationship between a digital labour platform and a person performing platform work through that platform should be legally presumed to be an employment relationship and therefore digital labour platforms should be presumed to be employers. To that effect, Member States should establish a framework of measures, in accordance with their national legal and judicial systems, in order to ensure that the legal presumption can be relied upon by competent authorities and bodies that verify compliance with or enforce relevant legislation as well as by persons performing platform work and their representatives. Member States should provide for an inspection by labour inspectorates or the bodies responsible for the enforcement of labour law every time a person performing platform work is newly recognised as platform worker, within one month of such recognition, in order to verify the status of the other persons performing platform work for the same digital labour platform. Members consider that the use of algorithmic scheduling systems heightens the use of precarious, short shifts and unstable and unpredictable schedules. Algorithm-based technologies may produce power imbalances and opacity about decision-making, as well as technology-enabled surveillance which could exacerbate discriminatory practices and entail risks for privacy, workers´ health and safety and human dignity and may lead to adverse consequences for working conditions and the exploitation of workers. Algorithmic management that entails automated…

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