Brussels – Today (April 24), the plenary session of the European Parliament approved by a large majority the proposal to regulate “riders” and platform workers. The new rule is aimed at improving the conditions of those with digital-related jobs: often, these people have a self-employment contract even though, in fact, they are employees. The proposal must now be approved by the EU Council, which, however, has already rejected similar proposals.
The European Parliament is trying again to pass a law protecting digital platform workers. With 554 votes in favour, 56 votes against, and 24 abstentions, the EuU Parliament gave its okay to the proposal by Socialist (S&D) Elisabetta Gualmini, the rapporteur. The directive obliges EU countries to establish a legal presumption of employment at the national level to correct the power imbalance between the digital work platform and the person working for it. According to the text approved by the European Parliament, the burden of proof lies with the platform.
The new rule also ensures that digital workers cannot be fired or removed based on a decision made by an algorithm or automated decision-making system. Instead, digital work platforms must provide human oversight of important decisions that directly affect the people working on the platform.
There are more than 500 digital work platforms in the EU, and more than 28 million people are employed there. These figures, Gualmini explains, give an idea of how important it is to take action on the matter: “We are regulating algorithms in the labour market for the first time in the world, we are calling for transparency, and we are saying that automated systems must not act outside human supervision,” also adding that, with this measure, “we want to ride digital development, but in a good society, one that respects the minimum expectations of each of us, among which is to have a decent job.”
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
