The European Parliament has passed legislation aimed at protecting workers employed by digital platforms, including food delivery providers, drivers, and couriers.
This new EU platform workers legislation ensures the correct classification of employment status and addresses bogus self-employment.
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The law presumes an employment relationship when certain criteria are met, with the onus on the platform to prove otherwise.
This significant shift is designed to improve the working conditions of platform workers and introduces, for the first time in the EU, regulations on the use of algorithms in the workplace.
The legislation seeks to balance the power between platforms and their workers, prohibiting dismissals based on algorithmic decisions and requiring human oversight for critical decisions.
Digital labour platforms are now mandated to ensure human involvement in significant decisions impacting platform workers.
Moreover, the new rules enhance the protection of platform workers’ data.
The processing of personal data, such as information on emotional or psychological state and personal beliefs, by digital labour platforms is now forbidden.
The agreed text awaits formal adoption by the European Council. Following its publication in the Official Journal of the EU, member states will have two years to transpose the directive into national law.
