Meal deliverers and, for example, drivers of taxi service Uber must in the future be seen as employees and not as self-employed persons. With a new bill for platform workers, the European Commission hopes to improve the rights of these people.
“As more and more jobs are created by digital platforms, we need to ensure that these people have decent working conditions,” said Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager.
Platform companies such as Uber and Deliveroo will have to look at five criteria in the future when they employ self-employed people. For example, if the price cannot be negotiated or a self-employed person cannot have direct contact with the customer, a platform is really just an employer, the Commission argues.
More rights
The Commission expects that there are around 5 million self-employed workers in Europe who will have to be hired under the new rules. As an employee, a meal deliverer or taxi driver has more rights.
In this way you often build up pension and you are insured if you become incapacitated for work. With this proposal, the Commission hopes to reduce the gap between people who work for a platform and those who work for traditional companies.
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