Negotiators from Parliament and Council reached a provisional agreement today on a bill to improve the working conditions of persons performing platform work.
The Platform Work Directive aims to ensure the correct classification of the employment status of people performing platform work and to introduce EU-rules on algorithmic management and the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace.
✅Employee or self-employed
New rules introduce a presumption of an employment relationship (as opposed to self-employed) that is triggered when two out of a list of five indicators of control or direction are present. This list can be expanded by member states. The presumption can be triggered by the worker, by their representatives, and by the competent authorities on their own initiative. This presumption can be rebutted, if the platform proves that the contractual relationship is not an employment relationship.
✅Transparency
Currently, persons performing platform work do not have access to information on how the algorithms work and how their behaviour affects decisions taken by automated systems. With the new rules, platforms will provide this information to workers and their representatives.
✅More human oversight for automated decision-making and monitoring systems
With the new rules, platforms will be prohibited from taking certain important decisions, such as dismissals and decisions to suspend an account, without human oversight. The text also ensures more human oversight on the decisions of systems that directly affect the persons performing platform work.
Platforms will also be obliged to assess the impact of decisions taken or supported by automated monitoring and decision-making systems on working conditions, health and safety and fundamental rights.
✅Use and processing of personal data
The new rules will forbid platforms from processing certain types of personal data, such as personal beliefs, private exchanges with colleagues, or when a worker is not at work, and the Directive introduces more protective rules for platform work in the field of data protection.
Platforms will also have to transmit information on self-employed workers in their employ to the competent national authorities and to representatives of persons performing platform work, such as trade unions.
✅Use of intermediaries
Under the new law, it will not be possible for a platform to circumvent the rules by using intermediaries. Member states will have to make sure that persons performing platform work working through intermediaries enjoy the same level of protection as those with a direct contractual relationship.
Next steps
The agreed text will now have to be formally adopted by both Parliament and Council to enter into force.
Relevant documents
Platform work: deal on new rules on employment status EU-principeakkoord geeft platformwerker meer arbeidsrechten
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