It's a week today until the European Parliament elections, but at the Gig Economy Project (GEP) we have our eye on another election which ended on Thursday [30 May]. France's gig economy 'social dialogue' election results offer plenty of intrigue about the future of app work in a country where the contradictions and tensions over the government's platform-friendly policy are mounting.As a reminder, in 2022 French President Emmanuel Macron pushed through a law to establish a government-run arbitration system called ARPE to address industrial relations issues for self-employed ridehail drivers and food delivery couriers. The platforms sit on one side of the table under the guise of the Association of Platforms for the Self-Employed (API), while elections dictate the ridehail and food delivery representatives, who then seek to negotiate agreements with the API to improve pay and working conditions. The first ARPE election took place in May 2022. It was a bit of a fiasco. The head of ARPE previously worked for Uber and Uber staff were working as election organisers. Two of the radical platform work unions and workers' associations, INV and CLAP, boycotted the election. Turnout was just 1.8% for couriers and 3.9% for drivers, low by anyone's standards.The two years which have followed have been either quite productive or quite useless, depending on who you speak to. To sign an agreement it only requires 30% of the ridehail or food delivery worker representatives to agree. After the May 2022 election the National Federation of Self-Employed and Microentrepreneurs (FNAE) had enough support (34%) among the food delivery couriers who had voted to sign agreements by itself, which it duly did. Many unions have accused FNAE of signing bad deals with no real mandate to do so, as the organisation can boast very few actual members among the riders. Most notably, FNAE signed an agreement for a minimum hourly income of €11.75 in April last year, but it did not include waiting time and is an average, meaning not all deliveries are paid a minimum of €11.75. Following the agreement, Uber Eats sent a message to riders citing the agreement as the basis for lowering - not raising - the average pay-per-trip. One analysis found average pay at Uber Eats fell 10-40%, leading to a major national strike organised by three unions, two of which (CGT and Union-Indépendants) were represented on the ARPE. "The ARPE works as it should, because it is not a tool for improving workers’ rights, it’s a tool for the capitalists and for the government to impose a new status, a third status [between employee and self-employed]," one of the strike leader's, CGT organiser Ludo Rioux, told GEP in an interview.Laurent Hily of the FNAE has since admitted that the minimum hourly income agreement has not turned out as they had hoped, but says that "real progress" has been made through agreements on tackling issues like app de-activations and discrimination. INV and CLAP remain as critical as ever, but decided to drop their boycott for the second election of ARPE on Thursday, on the basis that it's better to fight the platforms from inside ARPE and outside rather than only from the outside. How did they get on?INV, which has recently become a division within the the Force Ouvrière (FO) union, were comfortably the first force elected by ridehail (VTC) drivers, winning 49.5% of the vote, confirming their position as the most representative union representing Uber drivers in France. Moreover, the turnout was up significantly for ridehail drivers at just shy of 18%, an increase which FO-INV leader Ben Ali Brahim put down to his union's participation.Ali Brahim is not likely to play nicely with the platforms on the ARPE. He has been one of the leading voices in France campaigning for a strong employment status in the EU Platform Work Directive, even walking from Lille to Brussels to make his point. Before his victory in the election, he was calling for the ARPE to be dissolved. Since FO-INV's victory, Ali Brahim has demanded that an "emergency meeting" of the ARPE is called so that they can rule null and void the VTC agreements negotiated from 2022-2024 "that destroy the working conditions of workers". Ali Brahim, who is also a candidate in the European Parliament elections for the left-wing France Insoumise, has sent GEP a long list of demands that he wants the platforms to agree to, including capping the commission which platforms can take per trip, a limit on the number of VTC drivers and that the Labour Inspectorate has oversight before any decision is taken to de-activate a worker from the app. The FO-INV have sufficient support to sign agreements with the platforms on their own, but Uber and Bolt may not be rushing to get their pens out. As for the riders, CLAP just missed out on the 8% threshold to get representatives, with the moderate Union-Indépendants receiving most support, and the left-wing CGT and Solidaires in second and third place respectively. FNAE came fourth, falling to just 9% of the vote. The turnout among riders was 3.9%, twice as high as in 2022 but still not exactly representative. The head of ARPE, Joël Blondel, said before the election he was looking for a 5% turnout, a target that has been missed for the riders. What all of this means for the future of Macron's 'social dialogue' model for the gig economy is as yet unclear. Macron is so dedicated to the model that his representatives on the Council of the EU were even promoting it in discussions with other member-states as a potential alternative form of social protection to employment status in their countries. But Macron lost that battle: in the end France was the only country to vote against the Directive on 11 March. By 2026, the French President will have to introduce a presumption of employment status in the platform economy, which should mean Ali Brahim achieves his ambition of the ARPE being dissolved, but it's unlikely to be that simple. We will have to wait to see what tricks Macron has up his sleeve in the transposition of the Directive into national law, but if the French President was planning to use ARPE agreements over the next two years to demonstrate the value of continuing his model in some form or another, he may find that such deals are increasingly difficult to strike with the more radical batch of worker representatives that have just been elected.Ben Wray, Gig Economy Project co-ordinator
|
|
Gig Economy news round-up |
- EU COMMISSIONER SCHMIT MEETS PARISIAN JUST EAT RIDERS THREATENED WITH DISMISSAL: The European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmit, has met Just Eat food delivery couriers who are on the verge of being fired in Paris. Just Eat announced in January that it was cutting what remained of its in-house 'Scoober' service and moving to a fully self-employed model in the French capital, a move which is set to make around 100 riders redundant. That's despite CEO Jitse Groen's public support for the EU Platform Work Directive, which Schmit was responsible for as Commissioner and which will establish a legal presumption of employment in the platform economy. Schmit is standing in the European Parliament elections as the lead candidate for the centre-left Socialists & Democrats group. His meeting with members of the FO union on Thursday [30 May], which has organised two international protests outside the company's Amsterdam HQ in recent months, comes as the window for the union to convince the company to re-consider its redundancy plan grows ever tighter. The workers' lawyer, Philippe Pradal, told the Gig Economy Project last month that he thought Just Eat wanted to push through the redundancies before the Paris Olympics, which starts in July. Just Eat already cut its Scoober service in the rest of France in 2022, and signed an agreement in December of that year with FO stating that there would be no more redundancies until at least December of 2024. Just Eat says it has had to make the job cuts to compete with rivals like Deliveroo and Uber Eats, who hire workers on a self-employed basis. A spokesperson told GEP in May that it continues to negotiate with FO "in good faith". Read more here.
- BARCELONA TAXIS IN 'SLOW MARCH' OVER VTC PLATFORM 'THREATS': Taxi drivers shut down Barcelona city centre on Tuesday morning [28 May], in a response to what the union Élite Taxi Barcelona called "recent threats" to its leading position in passenger road transport in the Catalan capital. Pictures showed the protest, organised by Élite Taxi, took over the 'Gran Via' in a show of force as the regional government prepares new legislation on the role of ridehail (VTC) paltforms in the territory. In 2022, the Catalan Government passed the most stringent VTC law in all of Spain's autonomous communities, effectively banning VTCs for everything other than taxis and mini-vans in order to create a clear distinction between the role of the taxi and the VTC in the city. However, Élite Taxi accuse Cabify, a Spanish ridehail platform, of breaching the law, which entered into force on 1 January 2023, claiming that Cabify VTCs operate in the city illegally without a license. "Either they operate legally, or there will be no peace in Barcelona," Alberto 'Tito' Álvarez, leader of Élite Taxi, said at Tuesday's protest. Cabify denied the claim, saying that any problems in the city were "motivated by the shortage of VTCs". Cabify has recently organised an advertising campaign at the Sants train station in the city claiming that train passengers have to wait at the station for taxis as there is not enough of them due to the VTC law, a claim that Élite Taxi responded to by saying that Cabify "laughs at taxis, at City Council and at the police". Élite Taxi, the largest taxi union in the city, is also concerned about the new legislation being devision by the regional administration, fearing that a new category for licences, called 'Gran Turismo', will lead to "hundreds" of VTCs being allowed to compete with taxis again in the city. Álvarez has warned that if his union's concerns are not addressed they will escalate by blocking access to airports, ports and train stations, as Élite Taxi has done previously in a successful bid to force Uber out of the city. Álvarez is due to meet Catalonia's Minister of Transport on 12 June to discuss the new law. Read more here.
- 41,000 BOGUS SELF-EMPLOYED GLOVO RIDERS HAVE BEEN REGULARISED: The number of riders who have been found by Spain's Labour Inspectorate to be wrongfully hired on a self-employed basis by Glovo since it was founded in 2014 totals 40,889. The Catalan-headquartered food delivery platform has around 12,000 riders currently registered on its app across the country (although many more undocumented riders work for Glovo via rented accounts), meaning more than three times as many who have delivered for the company over the past decade have been found to be bogus self-employed. The massive figure for those Glovo riders who have had their contract situations regularised by the state has led to the company receiving a total of €253 million in government fines and unpaid social security contributions, according to government data seen by 'El País'. Despite the huge fines, Glovo continues to hire workers on a self-employed basis and Labour Inspections continue. Glovo also faces a criminal prosecution by the Barcelona Provincial Prosecutor's Office for bogus self-employment, a case which could lead to jail sentences for senior management. Glovo convinced Spain's National Court to suspend collection of 12 fines amounting to €67.3 million due to it's "extreme financial situation", and Glovo's parent company Delivery Hero has admitted that the penalties for bogus self-employment puts Glovo's viability at risk. José Varela, head of digitalisation for the UGT union, told El País that the the huge numbers found to be bogus self-employed at the company was "confirmation of the failure of a business model that consists of breaking the rules.” Read more here.
- 4 FOOD DELIVERY PLATFORMS MAKE COMBINED $20 BILLION IN LOSSES: The four big specialist food delivery platforms operating in Europe have made $20.3 billion in losses since their shares were listed for purchase on the stock exchange, analysis by the Financial Times and industry analyst theDelivery.World has found. The biggest loss was Just Eat Takeaway, which has been $9.1 billion in the red since the merger between British-owned Just Eat and Dutch-owned Takeaway in 2020. German multi-national Delivery Hero has lost $7.8 billion since it was listed in 2017. American-owned DoorDash, which operates in Europe under the brand of Wolt, has lost $2.6 billion since it was listed in 2020. British-headquartered Deliveroo has lost $777 million since it went public in 2021. Uber, the other big player in the European market through its food delivery brand Uber Eats, made an annual profit for the first time in 2023 but was back in the red for the first quarter of 2024. The losses put into question whether the food delivery sector will ever produce sustainable profits. The platforms have all shifted strategy since 2022, moving away from searching for rapid growth at the expense of competitors towards seeking 'pathways to profitability' in the context of rising inflation and interest rates. The FT analysis shows efforts in this direction, including slashing rider pay, have improved their margins significantly but none of the platforms are yet to boast profitability. Read more here.
- 700 UBER DRIVERS IN BIRMINGHAM BLOCK CITY CENTRE OVER "UNFAIR WORKING CONDITIONS": A massive protest of Uber ridehail drivers took place in the British city of Birmingham on Thursday [30 March]. 'BirminghamLive' reported that around 700 drivers took part in a 'go slow' through the city centre to the company's offices in Aston Business Park to protest "unfair working conditions" including "dynamic and fixed pricing, unfair terminations and new recruitments". The demonstration was organised by Uber Drivers' Union UK, who's spokesperson Minhaj Uddin said: "There was a minimum of 1,000 participants with the driver at the back counting around 600 to 700 cars..it was a success, it exceeded all our expectations. We distributed around 10,000 leaflets and drivers from Manchester and Liverpool took part." Nadeem Hussain from Hall Green said: "Uber has promised us that we are partners but generally as time went on they started reducing their fares. Due to the cost of living, fares should be going up but they are not. The fares are reducing everyday; down, down and down. Basically we are getting £4.19 or £4.16 a fare and that includes holiday pay. We are the backbone of this company - if every driver doesn't accept any jobs, Uber would be lost." An Uber spokesperson said that every driver was "guaranteed National Living Wage – though the vast majority earn more." Another protest is scheduled for 1 July. Read more here.
Have we missed something important? You can help keep us informed by sending information to GEP@BraveNewEurope.com. |
Podcast – The rise and fall of grocery delivery in Europe
Billions of venture capital funding was ploughed into Europe’s grocery delivery sector just three years ago. Now, there’s almost nothing left to show for it. What went wrong? The Gig Economy Project spoke to Rachel Verdin, Harry Parfitt and Aju John to find out.
|
|
- The University of Edinburgh and the Workers' Observatory is hosting an event titled 'Cracking the Black Box within the Platform Economy'. The event will take place on Wednesday 5 June 5.30-8pm GMT at The Melting Pot, 15 Calton Road, Edinburgh. For full details and to buy a ticket, click here.
|
|
The Gig Economy Project is a media network for gig workers and we welcome contributions from workers, writers, academics, activists - anyone who wants to stand up for workers' rights in the gig economy.
If you would like to write for the site, discuss arranging an interview with GEP, or simply have information about developments in the gig economy in Europe you think we should be aware of, get in touch.
Contact project co-ordinator Ben Wray at GEP@BraveNewEurope.com or send a direct message to the Twitter: @project_gig.
And if you like the Gig Economy Project weekly newsletter, why not get your friends and colleagues to subscribe? Here's the link.
|
|
|
