EurActiv, the online daily European newsletter, reports on deep divisions within the centre-right European Peoples Party (EPP) in the European Parliament over the proposed Directive on the status of platform workers. The centre-left Social Democrats want the Directive to classify all platform workers as employees, with a heavy burden of proof being placed on platform managers to prove they are not and that they are genuinely self-employed. A significant number of EPP members lean in the same direction, though with greater leeway being afforded to platform managers to argue the self-employed case.
However, “hawks” within the EPP are intent on allowing platform companies to keep their existing employment model intact amid fears that to automatically classify all workers as employees runs the risk of putting them out of business.
Agnieszka Piasna, a senior researcher in economic, employment and social policies at the European Trade Union Institute in Brussels, looks at the challenge for trade unions in organising platform workers. As we have noted previously, while unions might see opportunities for membership growth in the ever increasing number of platform workers, union membership in general across the European private sector continues to decline, and today stands at around 15% of the workforce. If unions have a “value proposition” to offer to the workforce, then it would appear that they are failing to sell it effectively.
Christopher Hutton, Matt Giles, and Harrison Gower from Hogan Lovells look at the recent decision by the European Commission to change its approach to collective bargaining by solo self-employed workers. The authors note that on 29 September 2022, the European Commission (Commission) formally approved the "Guidelines on the application of EU competition law to collective agreements regarding the working conditions of solo self-employed persons" (Guidelines) that were initially drafted in December 2021. The Guidelines clarify two headline issues:
- In certain instances, where solo self-employed people are "considered to be in a situation comparable to that of workers", their collective agreements will fall outside the scope of competition rules; and
- The Commission will not enforce EU competition rules against collective agreements in cases where there is a "clear imbalance in bargaining power" such that the solo self-employed workers involved are "in a weak bargaining position" compared to their negotiating counterparty.
