Delivering stronger rights for platform workers

Renew Europe strongly believes in the opportunities that platform work provides and that people in this new sector deserves decent working conditions and equal protection as those in more traditional jobs. Therefore, we welcome that the inter-institutional agreement reached on the Platform work directive was endorsed by the committee on Employment and Social Affairs on Tuesday, which sets the first EU-rules ever on algorithmic management in the workplace ensuring transparency, human oversight, protection of personal data and a right to contest automated decisions.

Lucia Ďuriš Nicholsonová, (independent/Slovakia) represented Renew Europe in the negotiations. She says:

"This agreement marks a historic moment by introducing fundamental rights pertaining to algorithmic management for people engaged in platform work. I am pleased that we have managed to strikes a delicate balance, ensuring the preservation of the benefits and innovation that platform work contributes to the EU labour market. Let us embrace this compromise as a testament to progress and chart a course towards a more equitable and dynamic future."

According to Commission estimates, 43 million people in the EU are expected to work through digital labour platforms by 2025, where half a million of those could be at risk of employment status misclassification. The latter denies them access to employment and social rights and harms the level playing field in the single market for traditional businesses. Renew Europe is therefore pleased that the directive ensures a better balance of power between the platform and the person performing platform work by ensuring greater transparency on the use of algorithmic management as well as obliging EU member states to establish a rebuttable legal presumption of employment and reversal of the burden of proof at national level. This will prevent abuses and help to guarantee the correct determination of employment status for each worker enabling them to benefit from any labour rights they are entitled while not limiting the benefits and innovative opportunities that platform work can provide.