
The European Parliament (EP) has backed proposals to prevent platform companies from forcing workers into false self-employment and denying them rights to minimum wages, holiday and sick pay, and a secure employment contract. In recent years platform companies have lost a string of court cases over false self-employment, with the latest in the Netherlands where judges ruled “the legal relationship between Uber and these drivers meets all the characteristics of an employment contract.” The EP report supports a rebuttable presumption of an employment relationship for platform companies and reversal of the burden of proof. It also argues that establishing a new EU so-called third status between worker and self-employed person should not be considered. The proposals echo those made by the ETUC in its reply to the second stage of the European Commission’s consultation on action over working conditions in platform work.