Formerly Uber driver Yaseen Aslam began promoting workers’ rights to the program back in 2014, the war was hopeless; as a “black channel.” It is said that experts told him that it was impossible to do well because his colleagues were so different and most of them were people of smaller races, groups that he did not have. the amount of union membership. Seven years later, Aslam – now President of the App Drivers and Couriers Union (ADCU), a group with thousands of members – could look at the UK and Europe and see a number of lawsuits recognizing more workers’ rights. in the gigs. He said: “This year has been a wonderful one. “Now we are beginning to see the light.”
Over the past 12 months, gig financial companies have long been in court, with judges looking at a type of business that promises workers flexibility in exchange for less freedom than traditional workers. But on December 9, the European Commission he announced One of the biggest challenges in this regard is the publication of a new law designed to re-establish relationships between game developers and paid platforms. If approved, the law could affect more than 4 million people, according to the Commission, which appears to be responding to the increasing number of cases in national courts. “There are already more than a thousand court decisions in the EU [against] “There are hundreds of pending cases, and there are hundreds of cases pending,” said European Chancellor Valdis Dombrovskis at a press conference. “
The first notable case of 2021 came in February, not in the EU but in the UK. Aslam was one of 25 drivers who criticized Uber for placing them as self-employed. British Supreme Court ruled in favor of drivers, granting them exemptions as minimum pay and vacation pay. The trial was just the beginning of the year in which courts across Europe issued judgments affecting car programs including Uber, Bolt, and Ola, as well as delivery programs such as Deliveroo and Glovo. Uber said will complain the same decision was made by a Dutch court in September it says the drivers were workers and not contractors. In Belgium, a court ruled in November that only Uber drivers with valid taxi licenses could continue operating, which the company said did not include 95 percent of drivers in the program. This week, London High Court ruled that the way in which automotive programs claim to be “assistants,” facilitators of the relationship between driver and passenger, was not in accordance with the city’s traffic laws. Instead, companies like Uber and Free Now have to take a higher responsibility for the program.
“Platform programs started with the idea that they were disruptive … to help regulate the business on behalf of independent drivers,” said Jeffrey Vogt, attorney general at Solidarity Center, a Washington, DC, workers’ rights group that follows the court. lawsuits around the world. The plan was approved for years, he adds, but soon there has been an explosion of lawsuits. The London Supreme Court ruling is just one example of the dissolution of that presiding position. Vogt stated: “Many of the views of the courts within and outside Europe are finding a work ethic. “There are still advertisers, but I think that’s what is happening.” One of the last ones is included on December 8th elections in Belgium, when the court found that Deliveroo riders could no longer be counted as employees.
However, the consensus among European judges means that the gig business model cannot remain in Europe as it is now, says Valerio De Stefano, professor of occupational law at Belgian University KU Leuven. “In my opinion, [gig economy companies] they will have to decide if they want to run the business legally or change their business model by allowing employees to set their own wage and not evict them from the platform due to lower prices. “Avoidance of change will also be difficult if successful courts continue to uphold the rule of law. In May 2021, the Spanish government changed the decision of the Supreme Court of 2020 into law, which requires that gig staff be recognized as employees. The same bill was the same approved by the Portuguese government in October 2021 and is expected to receive the final official stamp from Parliament. “The legal victories we have had are important because they draft laws and force lawmakers to articulate their rights,” said Johanna Wenckebach, director of the Frankfurt Hugo Sinzheimer Institute, which works with German agencies.