Dir­ect­ive on Plat­form Work adop­ted nev­er­the­less

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Published 24 July 2024 Reading time min Author Youri Breure Labor & Employment

On 11 March 2024, Min­is­ter Van Gen­nip con­firmed that the mem­ber states have agreed to the Plat­form Work Dir­ect­ive, despite previous announcements that it had not been adopted. 

 

Com­prom­ise text agree­ment

The final agreed text strikes a bal­ance between respect­ing nation­al labor sys­tems and ensur­ing min­im­um stand­ards for the pro­tec­tion of plat­form work­ers. The key ele­ment of the com­prom­ise involves a leg­al pre­sump­tion aimed at help­ing determ­ine the cor­rect employ­ment status of plat­form work­ers. In this con­text, the fol­low­ing has been agreed:

  • Mem­ber states will estab­lish a leg­al pre­sump­tion of an employ­ment rela­tion­ship with­in their leg­al sys­tems, which will be triggered when facts are estab­lished indic­at­ing con­trol and dir­ec­tion.
  • The afore­men­tioned facts will be fur­ther defined based on nation­al law and col­lect­ive agree­ments, tak­ing into account EU jur­is­pru­dence, and
  • Indi­vidu­als work­ing for digit­al plat­forms, their rep­res­ent­at­ives, or nation­al author­it­ies can invoke this leg­al pre­sump­tion and argue that they have been mis­clas­si­fied. It is then up to the digit­al plat­form to prove that there is no employ­ment rela­tion­ship.

 

Imple­ment­a­tion timeline

After the neces­sary form­al steps, includ­ing final­iz­ing the text and approv­al by the Coun­cil of the EU and the European Par­lia­ment, mem­ber states will have two years to incor­por­ate the Plat­form Work Dir­ect­ive into their nation­al legis­la­tion.

We will keep you informed of fur­ther devel­op­ments in this area.

 

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