2023-11-06 12:56:11
► What unites them?
They are English, French, Italian, Spanish, Austrian and Belgian. They carry out bicycle deliveries on behalf of the Deliveroo or UberEats platforms. Together, they are participating in “The Great Delivery”: leaving Paris on Sunday, November 5, they plan to cycle for three days to arrive in Brussels on Wednesday.
Reduced pay, work accidents, arduousness… These platform drivers and couriers are experiencing “exactly the same thing”. “Uberization has no borders, summarizes Jérémy Wick, a 34-year-old French deliveryman, interviewed by Agence France-Presse. We all do very difficult and underpaid work: we are exploited. »
During their journey, the couriers planned to meet political figures, such as LFI deputy François Ruffin, in Amiens. They will arrive in Brussels on Wednesday, where “the last phase of negotiation” of a European directive on the rights of platform workers. They plan to meet the negotiators of the text in the European Council and Parliament.
They will also pay tribute to Sultan Zadran, a courier who died last February while making a delivery in Brussels.
► What does the European directive provide?
On June 12, 2023, the Council of 27 Ministers of the European Union agreed on a draft Commission directive aimed at defining the criteria based on which digital platform workers must be considered employees, and not employees. self-employed.
Noting that these platforms still abuse gray areas of national or European laws, the European Commission’s proposal aims to create a “legal presumption of employment” to fight against hidden employment.
Based on a certain number of criteria (fixed remuneration levels, compulsory wearing of uniform, ban on working for other companies, ban on refusing missions and schedules, remote supervision of services, etc.), the platform would be qualified of “employer” and should comply with the National Labor Code (minimum salary, working hours, paid leave, etc.). Parliament is at this stage more ambitious than the Council on the number of criteria to take into account.
► What are the issues?
This draft legislation intends to set identical rules at the level of the Twenty-Seven. The reclassification of self-employed workers as employees could thus concern 5.5 million of the 28 million platform workers in Europe (taxi drivers, domestic workers, meal delivery workers, etc.), according to the European Commission.
Unsurprisingly, Delivery Platforms Europe, which represents the platforms in Brussels, is strongly opposed to this European text, which threatens an economic model based on a docile, low-cost workforce.
The situation is also getting tougher across the Atlantic for platforms. Uber and Lyft thus had to reach agreements with the justice system of New York State in order to return $328 million to underpaid or abused drivers. They will also have to create a “floor” salary.
#couriers #cycle #Paris #Brussels #rights #heard