Uber has proposed to the European Union the implementation of a labor law similar to approved in California, last year. In this model, app drivers and delivery people are categorized as self-employed professionals and not as company employees, a proposal initially approved by the state legislature in late 2019 and revoked last year through a plebiscite.

In a statement released On Monday (17/02), Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi defended a set of reforms so that labor laws in the Old World adapt to its business model. For the executive, an eventual classification of drivers as employees could be lethal to the flexibility of the service.

“We are calling on policymakers, other platforms and social representatives to act quickly to build a framework that makes earning opportunities more flexible, with standards that all platform companies must offer to independent workers,” she writes. “This could include introducing new laws, such as the legislation recently enacted in California. Or building on a more European model of social dialogue, where platform workers, policymakers and social representatives work together to define principles for compensation.”

Categorizing app drivers and delivery people as self-employed or “entrepreneurs” has become a hotly debated topic in recent years. Critics argue that the laxity in labor relations deprives workers of basic benefits such as salary protection, paid time off, and health insurance. Companies like Uber, on the other hand, argue that workers value flexible working hours and that the price of the service would go up if they were classified as employees.

Scenario in Europe

Unlike the United States, however, Uber finds a distinct operational landscape in Europe, in which, in some countries, labor laws inherited from the welfare state of the 1950s and 60s are still in force. An example of this was the decision of an appeals court in the Netherlands in favor of Deliveroo delivery people. Last Tuesday (16/02), they were considered employees of the British app and not “pseudo-freelancers”, as the FNV (Federation of Dutch Trade Unions, in Portuguese) ironically called it.

In the United Kingdom itself, in fact, new contours of the confrontation between Uber and labor laws are expected to take place. still this Friday, when the Supreme Court decides whether app workers are employees or contractors of the company. Five years ago, Uber appealed to the country's highest court after a labor court ruling in favor of two drivers and lost.

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