Brussels, 24 June 2024
To: Members of the ad-hoc working group on Platform Work
Dear Colleagues,
We hope this email finds you well.
With this email, we would like to bring your attention to the upcoming deadline for registration to our third edition of the Platfor(u)m. We have already received a large number of registrations and therefore the deadline of 30th June will not be negotiable.
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.
Actions undertaken in the framework of the EU project “Platform Reps” have allowed ETUC and its member organisations to discuss and research in depth collective and legislative approaches towards digital labour platforms. This was done in light of the ongoing discussions by the European co-legislators on the proposal for a Directive on improving working conditions in platform work. The actions focused on the challenges identified for granting protection to workers and on the possibilities for the enaction of effective legislation at national level.
Actions undertaken in the framework of the EU project “Platform Reps” have allowed ETUC and its member organisations to discuss and research in depth collective and legislative approaches towards digital labour platforms. This was done in light of the ongoing discussions by the European co-legislators on the proposal for a Directive on improving working conditions in platform work. The actions focused on the challenges identified for granting protection to workers and on the possibilities for the enaction of effective legislation at national level.
Dear Lidija and Tea,
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) wishes to express our full support for Sindikat Mladi Plus, a member of our Slovenian member organization ZSSS, in their efforts of organising workers and to engage in collective bargaining with Wolt and Glovo, two digital labour platforms operating in Slovenia.
We are extremely concerned by the negative response of these companies to undertake collective bargaining with Sindikat Mladi Plus, citing that their workers are self-employed and therefore cannot be represented by the union.
The European Parliament has taken an important step towards ending bogus self-employment and precariousness in digital labour platforms.
Delivery riders, cab drivers, content creators, programmers, click-workers, engineers and carers are among 28 million workers who would benefit from the provisions in the Employment Committee’s report which passed its plenary vote today.
MEPs voted to end the system of false self-employment used by platform companies to cut costs at the detriment of workers’ pay and conditions.