ETUC's next steps towards fair platform work
Discussed at the Executive Committee meeting of 24-25 June 2024
The Directive on improving working conditions in platform work is to be finally adopted after a lengthy process and after the fight between progressive governments, MEPs and trade unions representing workers' voices, and liberal governments who sided with platforms enchanted by their promises to offer jobs at the cost of dismantling the European labour and social rights framework.
Trade unions are calling on EU member states to waste no time in putting the platform work directive into action at national level. Millions of workers have been forced into bogus self-employment by platform companies, meaning they miss out on their most basic rights as workers such as the minimum wage or sick pay.
The directive adopted today by the EU Council will mean:
Brussels, 24 October 2024
To: Member of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Platform Work
To: ETUC Member Organisations
Dear Colleagues,
We are reaching out to ask for your help again with the dissemination of the survey on algorithm management.
Delivery workers say the platform work directive could stop them being treated as a “slave to an algorithm” if it is properly implemented by national governments. The directive is expected to be given the final green light by the Council shortly, meaning member states need to begin putting its improvements into their national law.
Brussels, 01 October 2024
To: Registered participants to Platforum
Dear friends,
Thank you for your participation in the third Trade union forum on Platform work.
All relevant follow-up information for the Platforum is available here.
Travel info:
In a historic move, the European Parliament has today adopted the Platform Work Directive, a major victory for millions of people working through digital platforms. This directive ensures that they will finally obtain minimum wages, sick pay, and other essential employment safeguards. Key Provisions:
This is a call for a subcontractor to provide expertise in the framework of the implementation of the ETUC Fair Platforms project. More specifically, this call for tenders relates to the drafting of a study on algorithmic management and access to information in platform work.
The deadline for submission of bids is 20 May 2024 at noon (12:00).
All details are in the PDF document attached
This is a call for a subcontractor to provide expertise in the framework of the implementation of the ETUC Fair Platforms project. More specifically, this call for tenders relates to the drafting of a forecast study in the field of platform work.
The deadline for submission of bids is 20 May 2024 at noon (12:00).
All details are in the PDF document attached
Millions of people working through digital platforms are set to finally obtain minimum wages, sick pay and other employment protections following the adoption of the platform work directive today by EU member states.
Trade unions were successful in including the presumption of employment with the reversal of the burden of proof. Instead of individual workers going through lengthy court processes to prove they are a worker, it will now be up to the platform corporations to prove they are not employees.
Dear Prime Minister Kallas,
I am reaching out to you on behalf of working people and trade unions across Europe to ask you to support the Directive on Improving Working Conditions in Platform Work
Your support, Estonia’s support, is the decisive factor for the adoption of the Directive.
I understand that your government will decide closer to the vote in EPSCO on Monday 11th of March on its position.
Brussels 06/03/2024
Dear Mr Arras, Dear Mr Pozzana,
Over the past two years, we have met on several occasions at events related to the advocacy for the Platform Work Directive.
Overwhelming majority of EU member states have been held back in bringing in protections for delivery riders, taxi drivers and carers among others.
Millions of workers will continue to be forced into false self-employment after a small number of national governments torpedoed the chance to find a deal on the platform work directive.
Exactly 799 days since the Commission proposal, representatives of the French, German, Greek and Estonian governments vetoed the agreement found in trilogue negotiations between the EU institutions last week.
Urgent call to reconsider the Presidency Proposal on the Directive on Improving Working Conditions in platform economy
Letter sent to Pierre-Yves Dermagne, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy and Employment
Dear Minister Pierre-Yves Dermagne,
We address you this letter at the beginning of the Belgium Presidency, which we hope will be a successful one.
The Council under the leadership of the Belgian presidency of the EU must deliver a strong platform work directive as a first step towards ending precarious work and returning to the social Europe envisioned by Jacques Delors.
That is the call Esther Lynch, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), made in Namur at the first meeting of employment and social affairs ministers under the Belgian presidency, welcoming the focus put on quality jobs and on the European Pillar of Social Rights.
The EU Council today failed to approve the outcome of trialogue negotiations on the platform work directive.
Responding to the decision, ETUC Confederal Secretary Ludovic Voet said:
“A balanced agreement giving the most basic rights to platform workers is being held up for no good reason based on the objections of a small minority.
"This sends the wrong message to hardworking taxi drivers and delivery workers during their busiest period of the year.
Millions of workers who have been wrongly classified as self-employed and deprived of their basic rights stand to benefit from the platform work directive agreed today.
The ETUC calls on Member States to adopt this agreement and ensure its thorough implementation and enforcement.
Trade unions have been on the streets and in the courts to win recognition and better conditions for platform workers. This directive will give important legal backing to platform workers to be properly recognised and protected as workers.
Trade unions are calling on politicians to stand up to intense lobbying by platform companies and deliver real rights for delivery riders, taxi drivers, carers and other workers.
Uber has bombarded social media in Belgium with over 100 adverts since September 25 in an effort to weaken the EU directive on platform work, the Meta advert library shows.
Trade unions strive towards a Europe in which working conditions and pay allow people to live in dignity. On World Day for Decent Work, the ETUC highlights three urgent measures to ensure no worker is left behind: strengthening collective bargaining, enforcing the rights of people working through online platforms and requiring all internships to be paid.
Europe needs a pay rise
ETUC and its federations: European Transport Workers’ Federation, Uni Europa, IndustriAll and the European Federation of Food, Agriculture and Tourism Trade Unions call on policymakers to adopt a strong Directive on platform work that would end the exploitation of vulnerable workers and re-establish fair competition in a quickly developing platform economy.
Brussels, 18 September 2023
To: Members of the Committee of the Permanent Representatives of the Governments of the Member States to the European Union
In CC: Social attachés
Dear Permanent Representatives,
EU ministers made an important step towards the next phase of negotiations on the better regulation of platform work when they agreed the European Council’s position on the directive on platform work.
But improvements are needed because:
Brussels 01 June 2023
To Permanent Representative of the Governments of the Member States to the European Union
Dear Permanent Representative,
We are contacting you to emphasize the critical importance of achieving a general mandate on the Directive on improving the working conditions in platform work at the next EPSCO meeting in June.
