Newsletter noviembre, 2021

US: New York City passes bills offering protections to food delivery workers

The New York City Council has recently passed six bills providing protections, and setting a minimum pay to food delivery workers.
It makes New York City the first municipality in the United States to set baseline working conditions for services workers delivering food.

A “flexicurity” approach in the platform economy

Flexicurity is an integrated strategy for enhancing, at the same time, flexibility and security in the labour market. It attempts to reconcile employers' need for a flexible workforce with workers' need for security.
The “Hilfr agreement”, signed by the cleaning platform Hilfr and the United Federation of Danish Workers, is one of the first examples for collective bargaining and of attempt in flexicurity terms in the platform economy.

On 15 September 2021, Amazon Italia Logistics and the workers' unions signed an agreement, undertaking to comply with the rules of the Logistics, Freight and Forwarding national collective agreement (CCNL) as a regulatory instrument for employment and labour relations.
It is the first agreement on the system of industrial relations with the e-commerce giant.

The research report has been produced in the context of a project entitled ‘The definition of worker in the platform economy’ (CES/FSA/09/2020) commissioned by the workers’ group of the European Economic and Social Committee.
The final report aims to contribute to the debate on platform workers’ risk and regulatory solutions.

On 20 September 2021, the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) before the Indian Supreme Court seeking to classify gig workers as ‘wage workers’ with better social security and employment benefits.
The petition demands that gig workers be declared as unorganised workers and be entitled to social security benefits under the Unorganised Workers Act 2008, that provides social security and welfare to unorganized workers with no employment contracts.

On 13 September 2021, the Amsterdam District Court, in alignment with a previous judgment in a Deliveroo’s case, ruledin first instance that Uber drivers are employees and that the sectoral collective labour agreement (CAO Taxivervoer) would apply to Uber drivers, including pay requirements and some benefits.

The Court stated that three elements must be considered to decide if there is an employment agreement: personal performance of work, in exchange for payment of wages and in the service of the employer (a relationship of authority).