Social right. Platform workers are often self-employed in charge of providing goods and services in remunerated and non-relocatable form, subcontractors of companies. These companies which not only bring together supply and demand by an algorithm, but also define the service and the working environment of these suppliers, and which, in doing so, question above all the definition of the employee, the founder of social law.
Given the extent of this phenomenon, this category is also of interest to the European Union. The Commission has thus proposed a draft directive comprising in particular a list of checks to determine whether the platform is a ” employer “ and, where applicable, by deduction, would have the employee directly under his responsibility.
On February 2, 2023, the European Parliament amended this proposal by establishing a general legal presumption of employment for platform workers, regardless of the name or form of their contract. The Member States which, in the Council of twenty-seven labor ministers, must also approve the directive, are very reluctant to adopt any regulations, and therefore a fortiori the Parliament’s text. The situation is therefore blocked.
A risk of infringement
Yet, a notable breakthrough at the initiative of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition has hardly been noticed: on September 29, 2022, the latter published guidelines allowing self-employed workers to collectively negotiate better working conditions. without infringing EU competition rules.
The Commission is, in fact, also the competition authority responsible in particular for ensuring the application of texts prohibiting agreements. However, the self-employed are companies, within the meaning of the European Union Treaty, which places them at risk of infringement when they wish to agree on the price of their services… by collectively negotiating their working and remuneration.
Under these new guidelines, trade unions acting in the collective interest of these workers can no longer be treated as prohibited ‘cartels’, and collective bargaining for the self-employed who mainly provide their own work cannot be considered wage-fixing. illicit price.
In a weak position
This European text on market analysis is also interesting for its definitions. This applies to self-employed persons who depend on a single company for at least 50% of their professional income (over less than one year, one year or two years), those working alongside other workers, those who perform similar tasks for other workers working for the same company, and finally those offering their services to or through a digital work platform.
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