On 8 December 2021, the Labour Tribunal of Brussels ruled that Deliveroo riders should not be qualified as employees, but rather as self-employed workers.
It is the first ruling on the labour relationship qualification of workers in the platform economy by a labour tribunal or court in Belgium.
It includes a Communication, setting out the EU approach and measures on platform work, a proposal for a Directive and a Draft Guidelines on how EU competition applies to attempts by self-employed gig economy actors to bargain collectively.
The European Commission started consulting social partners with a view to possibly undertake action “to address the challenges related to working conditions in the platform work”.
The World Employment Confederation-Europe and BUSINESSEUROPE submitted their views and asked the EU Commission to refrain from using a one-size-fits all approach to regulation of platform work at the EU level.
The long-standing case of Uber and others v. Aslam and others (2016) was finally settled by the UK Supreme Court that confirmed the views of the lower Courts stating Uber’s drivers status of “workers” within the UK legal system
The Supreme Court also determined what must be considered as working time for a Uber driver
The German Federal Labour Court (No. 9 AZR 102/201, 1 December 2020) re-classified the crowdworker as an employee
It determined also that for remuneration purposes, the company shall not be bound by pre-established fees that the worker received as a self-employed worker.