PLATFORM WORKERS: A CHANCE TO BUILD A MORE COHESIVE EUROPE?

The increasing popularity of platforms represents a remarkable issue for the EU legislation, how is the European Union responding?

Our generation has been shaped by this arcane and at times perilous entity which is the internet. Just the thought of living without it has become nonsensical. Everything is on the internet, everyone is on the internet. This giant creature is a mother to all the information we exchange on a daily basis, but not only. As we have become more and more accustomed to it, we made it gain the possibility to penetrate our lives even more. We can find everything we desire on it, everything we need, since the internet developed the capability to put us in contact with those who can satisfy our needs. It created the possibility to exchange services through the so-called “platforms”, which have the power to connect the buyer to the seller. This created a brand new market segment called platform economy.

WHAT DOES PLATFORM ECONOMY CONSIST IN?

A study, requested by the European Parliament’s committee on Employment and Social Affairs, defines it as “platform work is non-standard work facilitated by online platforms which use digital technologies to ‘intermediate’ between individual suppliers (platform workers) and buyers of labour.”

So, as previously stated, we are able to establish a relationship, which may be considered triangular, among at least a platform, a worker and a client.

Nowadays platforms can be considered as a new form of marketplace. What is traded in these platforms is someone’s specific capabilities in order to satisfy a buyer.

Especially after the covid outbreak, platform work seems an easy method to make a living or to make ends meet. The types of work offered on these platforms are various. Both high-skilled and low-skilled workers are able to find employment. That explains why the diffusion of its popularity, especially during the historical moment we are living in, increased considerably.

Thanks to the more and more workers who are adhering to the working opportunities offered by the congenial environment created by the platforms’ owners, problems, which were dormant before, started to emerge.

First of all, it is compelling to acknowledge these workers as atypical. Platforms workers are usually under short-term contracts and they mostly cover temporary positions.

Moreover, the platforms, legally speaking, do not recognize themselves as responsible for the working conditions of the users. This raises the ensuing question: “Should the workers be considered as platforms’ employees or freelancers?”

Platforms’ owners, clearly, do not want to be considered by any means as the employer figure. It is blatant why: by considering workers as employees the owners would be required to provide a series of services, whose costs would eventually impact negatively on the conduction of their platform businesses.

Is this ethically sustainable? Of course not, that is why, in the past few years, protests have arisen all over Europe. Each member state has tried to respond in its own way.

THE EUROPEAN UNION MOVE

In 2019, “Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services” was approved in order to protect the gig workers. This is highly relevant since platform workers are part of the gig workers set.

Moreover to identify this type of workers the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) set a threshold value of working at least three hours per week and an average of twelve hours per four weeks. This value only works for platform workers or workers with short-term employment contracts, while self-employed workers are left out.

The rules revolve around two main concepts. The first one is increased transparency, which assures the workers of a complete understanding of the contracts they have stipulated. Workers, in fact, should be provided with a contract mentioning standard remuneration, working days or reference hours. In addition, their working days must not exceed the maximum daily amount of working hours permitted by law for regular workers. Secondly, national governments must improve the protection of these new forms of employment, by ensuring them a minimum set of rights.

This last point happens to be the most controversial one since most of the member states are applying to these types of workers a sort of hybrid legislation. This is because they are facing the dilemma of whether to consider them as self-employed or platform’s employees. Consequently, they are forced to use typical legislation, which uses some modifications in order to suit the hybrid nature of these jobs, to provide protection and rights to these people.

So far such solutions proved to be entirely ineffective, and, once again, all the eyes are pointed on the European Union’s next move.

The member states are having a three year period, which will expire at the closing of the current year, to adhere completely to the new rules.

THE OBSERVATORY ON THE ONLINE PLATFORM ECONOMY

With the aim of safeguard platform workers, Regulation (EU) 2019/1150, introduced the Observatory on the Online Platform Economy. The Observatory task is to assist the European Commission in monitoring the effectiveness of the new set of rules and the potential emerging issues correlated to the online platforms.

In particular, the Observatory focuses on the ranking system, therefore on the algorithms used, on the use of personal data by the platforms and the transparency of the actions taken by the platforms’ owners.

It is composed of a group of fifteen experts along with a team of Commission officials. Moreover, this group is helped by a support group composed of a consortium of four organizations.

The goal is to help build a sustainable environment for the workers, by protecting them and granting them basic working rights.

A DEEPER LOOK: UNFAIR COMPETITION

Only after taking a second and closer look is it possible to spot even further problems raised by platforms, which, in the long-term, create repercussions on workers. Platforms, indeed, influence the market by introducing the concept of unfair competition.

Unfair competition takes place when users are pushed to supply their services at lower and lower prices in order to maintain their jobs. Platforms are able to do so by making use of complicated algorithms to rate workers’ performances.

Such algorithms induce workers to accept more and more jobs with the aim of distributing risks as efficiently as possible. By these means, workers can increase their personal ranking and be chosen for better paid jobs.

Clearly, the use of these algorithms creates a noxious environment, where workers are increasingly pushed to maintain impossible standards, and, most importantly, they are pushed to view each other as enemies.

Therefore, workers usually do not gather in unions to represent their interests, which makes it even more complicated to subtract them from the exploitation system put into action by the platforms’ owners.

IN CONCLUSION…

The issues aforementioned are complex and will certainly require years of trial in order to tackle them completely. But this could be the chance the EU was expecting, to finally show a renewed strength and cohesion to the general public.

Only the following years will give us complete knowledge of the evolution of the phenomenon.

But for now, the only thing we can do is acknowledge the stressful conditions endured by platform workers and, as consumers, in terms of the platform economy, try to change our habits towards more sustainable ones.

by Febe Piccinin