This is the final of four studies I've worked on as part of the ETUC's Fair Platforms Project. You can access all of them here:
www.etuc.org/en/publicati...
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This is likely to be a once in a generation event where platform work laws are being written in 27 countries simultaneously. Hopefully this guide can be a useful resource for those seeking to influence the transposition process in favour of platform workers' rights.
This guide provides arguments for pushing back against the platform lobby. It lays out what transposition policies are favourable for platform workers to most easily access their rights. It also looks at what unions have to do after transposition to make best use of the new law.
I'm just got back from Brussels where I heard the platform lobby's arguments first-hand at a Commission event: they're highly misleading & manipulative, but to the untrained eye (or to the politician that wants some lines to justify doing the lobby's bidding) it might be convincing.
The powerful platform lobby is working to influence transposition in a way which will make the Directive toothless, where workers will not be able to access employment rights because the bar for triggering the presumption of employment will be too high & tying workers up in court hearings for years.
Here is the guide, includes an executive summary with the key proposals: etuc.org/sites/defaul...
I've written a trade union guide to the EU Platform Work Directive for the European Trade Union Confederation @etuc-ces.bsky.social.
This guide is intended to be a practical resource for workers and activists who are seeking to influence the transposition of PWD across the 27 EU member-states. 🧵
Acid rain over a city larger than London. Get these war criminals Trump, Rubio, Hegseth, Netanyahu to the Hague!
bsky.app/profile/fare...
Just finished this on the bus home (sadly still got over an hour left, and no more reading material!).
Takes on a lot of meaty subjects like multipolarity, the end of the neoliberalism and the modern nature of imperialism. Definitely gets you thinking.
bsky.app/profile/haym...
Tomorrow's wrap-around front page of The National.
This is the human cost.
As the UK Government talks a big game of being ready to join the US and Israel in war, over 150 families are mourning their children.
Their little girls were mostly aged 7-12.
A historically unpopular war with mid-terms coming up means the US-Israel war on Iran can be defeated.
I'm in Brussels and came across this huge banner for an arms fair. Flaunting militarism is the mood of the times I guess. Make Selling Arms Taboo Again!
Sánchez in June: "If we had accepted 5%, Spain would have to spend by 2035 an extra 300 billion euros on defence. Where would it come from? From cuts in health & education.”
That's what Trump and Merz were demanding today in the White House: that Spain sacrifices it's public services for bombs.
Merz nodding along while Trump promises a trade embargo on Spain shows trans-atlantic unity is prioritised over European unity. Keep that in mind the next time someone advocates deeper European defence integration.
This should be an inflection point. Think about what Trump is saying: 'we cut off all trade if you don't let us use your territory to illegally bomb other countries'.
Spain must shutdown the US bases now and tell Trump 'do your worst'.
No pasaran!
bsky.app/profile/atru...
Today has been a clear demonstration of the dangers of having US military bases on your territory. Europe is filled with such bases. It's time to start getting rid of them. Spain could make the first step by closing the Rota naval station and Morón air base.
Not seen one Western leader say a word about Israel blowing up a school in Iran full of students. If it happened in Israel or in Ukraine you wouldn't hear about anything else. When you're killed by a Western ally, you are a non-person, barely considered human by our politicians.
It's surreal that the US has launched a regime change war, very explicitly aiming to overthrow the Iranian govt, and the response of European politicians is to call on IRAN to de-escalate. It's like they are participating in a cartoon version of politics, adjacent to reality.
We need a global movement against US imperialism. The world faces no bigger threat.
A European Union Commissioner is going to sit on Trump's 'Board of Peace', a colonial instrument to rule over the ruins of Gaza.
Don't let anyone ever tell you again that the EU defends democracy, international law and human rights.
The study also looks at psycho-social hazards (which are serious), regulatory solutions, and how to take standard union approaches to health & safety issues and adapt them to the specific requirements of platform work.
Hopefully it's helpful for unions and workers: something has to change!
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Even for genuinely self-employed platform workers, there should be collective health & safety coverage for the time they spend working on the platforms. They missed a trick not including that in the Platform Work Directive, but member-states could include it when transposing PWD.
It’s not just that the job is a danger to workers, it’s a danger to the general public as well: they are working in public space. Tackling bogus self-employment is a public health issue.
Even if you don’t have a bad injury or a fatality, riders end-up suffering musculoskeletal disorders from carrying heavy weights on their back. If you get sick, you don’t get paid. You have to work through storms, on black ice, in heatwaves...
The job is dangerous regardless of your employment status, but the available evidence shows it’s twice as dangerous if you are ‘self-employed’ rather than an employee.
This diagram from a study by academics Nicola Christie and Heather Ward shows all the ways that bogus self-employed riders are in danger: they have the legal responsibility for their own health & safety but without the means to guarantee it.
Piece rates means you have an incentive to go fast. You have to work long hours, so you get tired. There’s next to no training/safety checks. You pay for your own equipment so it’s often poor. You have an app beeping at you all the time on the road. The job is a death trap.
People get into the gig economy thinking that it's quick cash until they can move on to something better. But far too many, especially in food delivery, never come out the other side. In Europe today, there’s few jobs that are more hazardous than being a food delivery courier.
“He wanted to work in graphic design,” Sebastian’s girlfriend, Valentina, said. “And he wanted to start a family with me and have two dogs.”
Glovo’s algorithm had registered that Galassi had not delivered the food to its destination and ‘robo-fired’ him as a consequence, but it knew nothing about why Galassi had failed to deliver the food. No phone call, no communication, no concern - just disconnect the app and move on.
