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New guidelines to enhance working situations for EU gig staff have been agreed earlier than Europe pauses for elections, after member states formally adopted the directive in Brussels on Monday (11 March).
“It is a momentous day for gig staff [who number around 28 million in the EU],” stated EU commissioner for Jobs Nicholas Schmit on X (previously Twitter).
“New EU guidelines will give platform staff extra rights and protections with out hampering platforms’ capacity to develop,” he added.
The laws was first proposed in December 2021, and has confronted vital opposition for the reason that Parliament and Council selected their positions final 12 months.
Twice, in December 2023 and February 2024, a provisional settlement was reached between the 2 co-legislators — however each offers collapsed shortly afterwards.
Within the newest failed vote, 4 member states (France, Germany, Estonia, and Greece) fashioned a blocking minority once they determined to not assist the compromise textual content over issues in regards to the authorized presumption of employment — which may reclassify 5.5 million staff from ‘self-employed’ to ‘workers’.
On Monday afternoon, nevertheless, Greece and Estonia modified their place and determined to assist the draft textual content, permitting the Belgian EU Presidency to achieve a ultimate settlement.
Solely France voted in opposition to, whereas Germany abstained.
The breakthrough comes as EU establishments put together to carry European Parliament elections in June, delaying any pending laws.
“The issues are nonetheless right here,” Greek labour minister Domna Michailidou stated, whereas including: “Given the truth that we need to work within the spirit of compromise, we’ll assist the directive”.
Beneath the brand new guidelines, member states would be the ones to create a presumption of employment of their authorized programs, which could possibly be triggered by a platform employee, a consultant or a nationwide authority claiming that they have been being misclassified.
Competent authorities will then need to assess whether or not there are sufficient details to point management and course, and if an employment relationship is discovered, gig platforms would be the ones obliged to show in any other case.
The directive may also set the primary guidelines for AI within the office, bringing extra transparency to the administration of algorithms and extra knowledge safety for staff similar to meals supply or taxi drivers.
For the trade group representing Bolt and Uber, Transfer EU, the present textual content “fails to attain a harmonised strategy throughout the EU, creating much more authorized uncertainty for ride-hailing drivers,” its chairman Aurélien Pozzana stated in an announcement.
“Uber now calls on EU nations to introduce nationwide legal guidelines that give platform staff the protections they deserve, whereas sustaining the independence they like,” stated an Uber spokesperson.
The compromise textual content nonetheless must be formally permitted by the parliament, which is able to vote on it in a plenary session in April.
As soon as permitted, member states could have two years to transpose the laws into nationwide regulation.
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