EU to hold Trilogue on gig economy workers’ conditions

An EU legislative trilogue is expected to meet in Brussels today.

The agenda for this iteration of the EU tripartite gathering (Commission, Council and Parliament), is expected to focus on the legislative negotiations relating to gig-workers’ rights. ‘Gig economy’ workers or ‘platform workers’ are those that work through an app, such as Deliveroo or Uber. Belgium holds the Commission’s presidency and so will lead this trilogue.

Gig-workers are classified as ‘self-employed’ by current EU law, which means they are excluded from benefits that are received by ‘employed workers’ within the bloc. These platforms have been accused of abusing the definition loophole by placing pressure on workers through threat of termination, which is far easier to do as a ‘contractor’ rather than an ‘employee’.

The EU has argued  that the pressure on current workers, does in fact classify them as full-time workers. Last month, the EU Parliament and Council introduced a jointly agreed bill that outlined the criteria needed to be met for a so called ‘self-employed’ gig worker to be considered employed. Today’s meeting is a chance for EU members to finalize a bloc-wide version of these criteria.

In the short-term, expect this meeting to fall short of producing a unified set of criteria. EU members will likely look to explore more business-friendly approaches as well, rather than totally altering the gig economy business model. In the medium to long term, however, expect this legislative debate to become EU employee law and expect that this will impact other western legislative views on gig-economy workers’ rights.