Platform economy database
Database of initiatives and court cases in the EU
Eurofound’s platform economy database provides information on 386 initiatives and court cases that exist or have been implemented in relation to activities in the platform economy. The database was last updated in February 2024 and provides metadata for each entry, such as geographical scope, year, type of initiative, actors involved, sector and companies concerned. Initiatives include legal instruments such as legislative changes or court decisions, as well as voluntary interventions undertaken by different stakeholders to address issues around platform work.
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The database currently contains 386 entries and was last updated in February 2024.
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Italy
In February 2021, the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office and the Italian Labour Inspectorate confirmed that the employment relationship between riders working for the platforms Foodinho, Glovo, UberEats, JustEat and Deliveroo must not be considered as occasional independent work. Instead, the workers must be classified as ‘coordinated and continuous workers’. Therefore, the companies were urged to fully hire their 60 000 couriers and they were fined with a total amount of €733 million due to their failure to ensure that health and safety regulations are followed. The case and the decision were influenced by a series of accidents of riders. The platforms have been appealing against it.
The following recent changes to this court ruling have been recorded.
Following the 2021 court ruling by the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office, a Milan court has ruled on 20 October 2023 that Deliveroo and Uber Eats are obliged to pay outstanding contributions for its riders to the Italian National Social Security Institute. This concerns the timeframe from 2016 to 2020 for Deliveroo and 2020 for Uber Eats, and a sum of money of over 10 million Euros. As the 2021 ruling concluded that riders are coordinated and continuous workers, the platforms had wrongfully avoided paying contributions for its riders. Both platforms have announced that they would appeal the 2023 court ruling.
The platform economy is one of those moving targets, which, despite receiving increasing media and policy attention, has proven difficult to regulate. Given the heterogeneity of employment relationships, business models, types of platform work and cross-border issues, this is not surprising.
Technological change is accelerating as the capacity of electronic devices to digitally store, process and communicate information expands. Digitalisation is transforming the EU economy and labour markets: nearly one-third of EU workplaces are categorised as highly digitalised. What are the implications of the digital revolution for employment and work?
The rapid rise of the platform economy has led to a marked transformation of European labour markets, and existing regulatory frameworks and voluntary initiatives have yet to catch up. While platform work offers opportunities for workers and employers and potentially contributes to innovation, economic growth and competitiveness in the EU, it has been criticised from the beginning because of the poor employment and working conditions often experienced by workers.
While 2020 may come to be seen as the year platform work gathered pace and started to go mainstream – thanks in large part to COVID-19 containment measures sparking an increase in food and grocery delivery – 2021 could be the year that regulation of platform work is set in motion.
