The negotiators of the European Union may have reached an agreement that would grant rights to millions of workers through digital platforms (gig workers), but the Greece of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, together with Germany, France and Estonia, managed to block the relevant legislation , on Friday, February 16
In particular, the representatives of the four states abstained from voting, with the result that the required enhanced majority was not gathered.
With the specific voting system (QMV), new legislation is approved by the Council of the EU when at least 55% of member states representing at least 65% of the total EU population vote for it. If Greece voted for it, the directive would have adopted.
The text of the Directive that would be adopted provided for the establishment of a (militant) legal presumption in favor of the existence of an employment relationship between companies and their employees, as long as there were data indicating that the company exercises control over them (each member state would be free to ‘design’ this presumption, within certain limits, in order to favor the employee). Greece would thus be obliged to change the current regime in which – in a pan-European originality – it establishes a presumption, rather than the opposite – that is, that the worker on a platform must basically be considered self-employed (!).
It also provided for greater transparency regarding companies’ algorithms, as their employees would have to be informed about the operation of the algorithms and the ways in which they are monitored, and their representatives would also have consultation rights before introducing new ones. algorithmic systems, while companies would be obliged to transmit relevant information to the competent national authorities. Finally, companies would no longer be able to process some sensitive personal data (e.g. data concerning the mental state of the employee, or personal conversations), while a limit would also have been set on the decisions that can be made by an algorithm (e.g. firing an employee). .
It is no coincidence, then, that many unions welcomed the proposed legislation, while platforms (Uber, Deliveroo, Bolt, Volt, etc.) and the European employers’ confederation BusinessEurope expressed strong objections. In the end, the big companies achieved their goal, with the undivided support of the Greek government, which in practice promoted the deprivation of important rights. An estimated 5.5 million people working on the platforms have been misclassified as self-employed across the EU, and this specifically aimed to fix the rebuttable presumption of wage employment to give them back their rights
We know that France set fire to the legislation as, since the revelation of the Uber files scandal, Emmanuel Macron has had a ‘privileged’ relationship with Uber for years, whose positions he defended in this case as well. Germany abstained due to the opposition of the Liberal party, FDP, a member of the governing coalition, to the adoption of the European directive, while Estonia, home of Bolt, defended the latter’s interests.
What interests did the Greece of Kyriakos Mitsotakis serve this time?
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