The Party of European Socialists (PES) commends Member States for today approving the compromise reached during negotiations on the platform work directive.
PES President Stefan Löfven said:
“I congratulate European Commissioner Nicolas Schmit, S&D rapporteur Elisabetta Gualmini, the Belgian Presidency, and everyone in our progressive family who has worked hard to reach this historic deal. Some big platforms did not want this directive and have massively lobbied against it, but social justice prevailed.
“Technological progress needs to go hand in hand with social progress. We can embrace innovation and new forms of work without going back to 19th century working conditions. This has always been our promise to Europeans: we will protect your labour rights, uphold the European social model and continually raise working and living standards for everyone.
“Now, we expect the Parliament to finalise the process and adopt the directive. There is no excuse for denying platform workers their rights any longer. I urge all members to support this fair and balanced compromise and a very needed directive.”
After the approval in the Council, the text now needs to pass in the European Parliament. If accepted, the agreement will clarify the status and tangibly improve the working conditions of more than 30 million European platform workers in a growing sector of our economy. Despite the strong resistance of powerful companies, our progressive political family was able to deliver a strong, well-balanced compromise. It ensures that digital platform work will no longer be a “wild west” without labour protection and will improve the level playing field between platforms.
The new Directive – which the PES political family has long fought for – aims at providing platform workers with a clear and effective path towards reclassification as employees and the burden of proof will be on the digital platform. This new tool will empower workers and their trade unions to fight bogus self-employment and ensure that platform works are no longer cheated out of the basic labour and social rights such as minimum wage, sick pay, holiday pay and social security. It will avoid lengthy court litigations to both platform workers and the platform themselves.
The platform work directive also includes important new provisions to protect workers in the digital economy. It ensures that important decisions, for example a worker’s dismissal, cannot be automated but have to be reviewed by a human. The text reinforces data protection rules and empowers trade unions through stronger transparency obligations. Platforms will have to disclose how their algorithms work and take automated decisions based on workers’ behaviour.
