Platform workers need EU minimum standards that ensure fair working conditions and foster innovation, says Renew Europe

Under Renew Europe and MEP Sylvie Brunet’s leadership, the European Parliament adopted a report on Thursday morning calling on the European Commission to ensure a European framework to safeguard the opportunities provided by platform work while ensuring decent working conditions and minimum social standards for Europe’s platform workers. This approach will ensure a level playing field and legal certainty for workers, companies and consumers.

The report is timely, ahead of the Commission’s legislative proposal on the working conditions of platform workers foreseen to be presented on December 8th.

Renew Europe is a staunch believer that digital labour platforms create opportunities for people earning their living through platforms such as food deliverers, on-location drivers, plumbers and freelancers, customers and businesses and stresses the immediate need for common minimum standards while maintaining innovation and flexibility in the platform economy. The Commission's forthcoming proposal must address the specific issues arising from platform work - such as increased transparency in working conditions, health and safety challenges, inadequate access to social protection, collective bargaining and social dialogue, training and upskilling, and ethical and transparent algorithmic management - in order to strengthen these workers' rights and prevent abuse.

MEP Sylvie Brunet, who has led the drafting of the report, says:

"This subject of platform workers brings us to the broader question of the future of work and the place of digital and artificial intelligence in the world of work. In these topics, Europe is called upon to act. I want to work alongside the European Commission to ensure that the opportunities offered by the new forms of work remain sustainable and fair".