Online platform workers - end of abuse of migrants?

For quite a long time now, more and more people started using internet platforms as a means of conducting business operations, providing services to their customers and reaching out to other organization to settle corporate differences.

Based on the EU data sources, there is close to 30 million workers in the European Union who extensively rely on digital platforms to provide services to their clients. The services provided by these workers in question can vary from deliveries, translations, data entry to child and elder care, or taxi services. For the longest time the issue of correctly and sufficiently protecting the rights of the workers, who use digital platform to provide their services, has demanded urgent solutions from European lawmakers.

On March 11 2024, The EU Employment Council has reached an agreement on a directive, the implementation of which will allow the protection of couriers, drivers, people delivering food or shopping and many other industries. The actual work on the legal basis of working using a digital platform began in 2021. The official purpose of such legislature would be to protect the labor rights of workers who use internet platform to provide their services and regulate their working conditions to prevent any wrong doing in regards to the workers themselves.

This directive creates a new concept of "working via online platforms" which classifies any service done by the natural person in the European Union using digital platform as work, regardless of the existence of a contract between a worker and the recipient of the services. European Parliament has stated that at least 5.5 million workers who use digital platforms to provide their services face problems with receiving adequate pay and protecting their labor right, even though they have fulfilled their obligations to the fullest extent.

Based on the reports, a lot of these people do not have access to the basic social protection in their workplace such as the right to leave and are not covered by working time regulations and workers safety protocols.

For the first time ever the presumption of employment would apply to such workers if the two of the five indicators of control or management are present during fulfilling their work obligations. The list of such indicators can be extended by the Member States of the European Union. It tries to provide a solution to the issue, where the worker, his representatives and the competent authorities would receive an ability to apply for the presumption of an employment in time and cases they see fit.

It should be noted though, that the digital platform, which provides the worker with an ability to conduct his business can overturn the presumption of an employment if it proves that the contractual relationship doesn’t fall under the sphere of employment. Another solution the provision provides has to do with an ability of the worker to have access to the information regarding the work of the algorithmic systems in the workplace, which are usually present in the majority of the online platforms. Digital platforms would now be required to disclose the information regarding the work of the algorithm to the workers and their representatives.

Online platforms would no be able to make certain decision that greatly affect the workers, such as layoffs and account suspensions, without human oversight. The provision sets a rule that digital platforms are required to asses the results and impact of their automated systems on the health, well-being and working conditions of their workers. It also prohibits platforms from processing certain sensitive personal information of the employee, such as personal beliefs and private exchanges between the workers which would positively impact the protection of personal data of workers in the workplace. Another step in the right direction is the requirement for the digital platforms to provide data regarding self- employed individuals to the competent authorities and to the trade unions, who may represent any given employee.

The new law also prevents any us of intermediaries to overcome government regulations. Protection of the labor rights is the issue that requires constant solution and such provision can be seen as the correct step in the right direction.

Janek, Junior Immigration Lawyer