TY - JOUR
T1 - The employment status of food delivery riders in Europe and the UK
T2 - self-employed or worker?
AU - Defossez, Delphine
PY - 2022/2/1
Y1 - 2022/2/1
N2 - Online platforms are revolutionizing our daily lives in an attempt to make it easier by offering innovative services. They also have introduced radical new business models which provide a new type of flexible working, facilitating employment. While platforms are revolutionary vehicles, they also denied workers status, resulting in food delivery riders facing precarious working conditions. The current regulatory framework is underdeveloped and unable to guarantee basic social rights to platform workers, except for Spain. At the same time, delivery workers are fighting to get some form of recognition and protection. Consequently, courts have been increasingly requested to determine the riders’ legal status. However, courts are struggling in characterizing those employment relationships resulting in disparities. For instance, the Cour de Cassation in France has established that an employer-employee relationship existed while the UK High Court denied worker status to Deliveroo riders. This lack of harmonization and different rulings could result in the application of EU rules in some countries but not others. It might, therefore, be time for the EU to start recognizing and regulating these jobs to offer better worker protections.
AB - Online platforms are revolutionizing our daily lives in an attempt to make it easier by offering innovative services. They also have introduced radical new business models which provide a new type of flexible working, facilitating employment. While platforms are revolutionary vehicles, they also denied workers status, resulting in food delivery riders facing precarious working conditions. The current regulatory framework is underdeveloped and unable to guarantee basic social rights to platform workers, except for Spain. At the same time, delivery workers are fighting to get some form of recognition and protection. Consequently, courts have been increasingly requested to determine the riders’ legal status. However, courts are struggling in characterizing those employment relationships resulting in disparities. For instance, the Cour de Cassation in France has established that an employer-employee relationship existed while the UK High Court denied worker status to Deliveroo riders. This lack of harmonization and different rulings could result in the application of EU rules in some countries but not others. It might, therefore, be time for the EU to start recognizing and regulating these jobs to offer better worker protections.
KW - Labour Law
KW - food delivery workers
KW - self-employed
KW - workers
KW - national judgments
KW - Yodel
KW - deficiencies in the EU system
KW - Labour law
KW - Political Science and International Relations
KW - Law
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85121768484&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1023263X211051833
DO - 10.1177/1023263X211051833
M3 - Article
VL - 29
SP - 25
EP - 46
JO - Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law
JF - Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law
SN - 1023-263X
IS - 1
ER -