A Setback for Gig Workers’ Rights in Europe w/ Ben Wray

I think that's part of the business model of these platforms is to work within legal grey areas, to find loopholes, they pay expensive corporate lawyers to do that work. So you don't just need to pass legislation, you need to have states which are dedicated to fighting to make it happen. I'm your host Paris Marks and this week my guy. Ben is the coordinator of the Gig Economy Project and the author of Scotland After Britain, the two souls of Scottish Independence.

He also has a fantastic newsletter with weekly updates on what's going on with the gig economy in Europe that is associated with a gig economy project. Ben was last on the show last year to talk about the developments with the Platform Work Directive, which was this, you know, piece of European Union legislation that was going to move forward the right to Of platform workers in that block of countries. On February 16th, the European Council, which represents the member states, voted against.

the platform work directive after many years of work on it. So I wanted to have Ben back on to talk about what actually happened here, why this piece of legislation did not move forward. And what it means for the future of rights of platform and gig workers in the European Union after this long process seems to have come to this unfortunate end.

So the first part of this interview really digs into that piece of this, right? Getting into the specifics of what this legislation was, how it would actually work. And why various governments chose to oppose it. Of course, you know, we see no surprise that France under Emmanuel Macron is a big opponent.

of platform worker rights. And of course you'll remember that from the recent interview that I did with Nastasia Hajaji, where we dug into his plans to make France a startup nation and how that meant not only transforming the state, but also empowering these particular tech companies, and how the shift to the right within the European Union presents even further challenges toward moving this forward and making sure that workers have the rights that they deserve.

But then near the end of this conversation, we talk about Uber and and other gig companies more broadly, how the business is going there, because Uber recently reported its first annual profit.

And use that to claim that now its business is viable, now it makes sense after fifteen years of losing tens of billions of dollars, that it's on the path toward a workable business model that will stay around forever. So we wanted to talk about whether that makes a lot of sense how Uber actually achieved that profit in the first place.

And what the future of its business actually looks like, because the narrative that it is presenting to the public and to investors doesn't seem to line up with what the fundamentals are saying, as is the usual case with a company like Uber. So this is a great conversation with Ben. I really enjoyed having him back on the show. I always enjoy having him back on the show because he knows these issues so well.

And I'm happy that we've been getting a bit more perspective on things that have been happening in Europe on the show lately. You know, hopefully that'll continue and uh, you know, we'll have some more conversations about things going on in other parts of the world as well. But with that said, if you enjoy this conversation, make sure to leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice.

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Yes. Yeah, it's always great to chat. You were last on the show about a year ago when we were talking about of course the platform work directive. And at that time it was coming out of the European Parliament, which is of course the elected. part of the European political institutions, I guess, you know, where you have all these representatives of the different member states. And there was a lot of hope and positivity in that time around what

the platform work directive might mean for workers in the gig economy and working on these platforms. Can you talk to us a bit about, you know, obviously there have been a number of developments. That's why you're on the show, but I wanted to go back to that time to actually

see how this process evolved before we get to the vote that recently happened. So after it moved out of the European Parliament and went to the European Council and through this kind of negotiation process called the trilogue, what was happening there and how did um that framework that came out of the parliament evolved once it interacted with these other bodies in the European government.

Yeah, so it's been a very, very long and quite confusing process with the platform work directive. It originally started. uh introduced has been uh part of the agenda after the European Union in twenty nineteen and it's still going on now in in twenty twenty four. So it's been a a long old process. So as you said Mae'n ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud.

Yn ymwneud â'r diwrnodd ymwneud â'r diwrnodd ymwneud â'r diwrnodd ymwneud â'r diwrnodd ymwneud â'r diwrnodd ymwneud. the platform, it would then say that you have to hire this worker Mae'r cymdeithas yw'r cymdeithas yw'r cymdeithas yw'r cymdeithas yw'r cymdeithas yw'r cymdeithas yw'r cymdeithas yw'r cymdeithas yw'r cymdeithas yw'r cymdeithas yw'r cymdeithas yw'r cymdeithas yw'r cymdeithas yw'r cymdeithas.

a worker can be made an employee, either through a Labour inspector doing an investigation or the worker themselves, you know, taking the case to court and and and challenging it directly. So that that's the main part of the law. And then the second part of the law, the less contentious part, is our algorithmic management rights so the right for platform workers to know what information the platform is holding them yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r

take data on workers when they're not at work, not to collect data on workers when they are, you know, s about issues that are not to do with work, like about their sexuality, about their political views. A whole set of data rights for platform workers. And those are the two parts of legislation. So the European Parliament's proposal was pretty ambitious, and then the Council, which is the member states, the 27 member states, France, Germany, so on and so forth,

they've been working on their own proposal and the two proposals get negotiated. The council eventually came up with its proposal under the Swedish Presidency in june twenty twenty three. That was a much less ambitious proposal. It was had lots of opt outs for countries. Had what I think would have been a system which would allow unions to flourish, kind of alternative to platform workers' rights that companies like Uber could establish

collective agreements with yellow unions, you know, unions which are basically company unions. It had a very hard criteria for triggering the presumption of employment. So it did also have a presumption of employment like the European proposal, but the criteria was so tough And then there was what's called trilogue negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council to try to kind of thrash out a deal.

Now under the Spanish Presidency in December, now Spain is the state that's the one state in in the EU that's already introduced a a general presumption employment for food delivery couriers. So they're the kind of most on the the kind of progressive side of all the states in this argument. They kind of negotiated an agreement with the European Parliament but was then rejected.

yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n. And then under the Belgian presidency, the way it works in the EU is there's a six-month rotating presidency, but each member state gets a chance to have the presidency. So the Belgian presidency began in January.

They negotiated a new deal with the European Parliament which basically left it up to each Member State to decide. on what the presumption of employment would look like. So if fance wanted to have a very weak presumption of employment, it was difficult to to implement Then France could do that. Spain wanted to have a strong one and they could do that. That was that's cutting a long story short, that was basically the the agreement that they negotiated.

That that was also rejected on the sixteenth of february by what's called a blocking minority of states. So just four out of the twenty seven states opposed it. But because those four states included France and Germany and on the council, you need 55% of all states to support any legislative change, and you need 65% of the population share of all states.

to support any legislative change. And France and Germany are by far the two biggest countries in the EU. And those two countries combined make up thirty three point eight percent. Rydyn ni'n ymwneud hynny'n ymwneud hynny'n ymwneud hynny'n ymwneud hynny'n ymwneud hynny'n ymwneud hynny'n ymwneud hynny'n ymwneud. Yn ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud.

But that's that's what's happened. Now it looked like that was gonna be it all over. There was gonna be no directive. because the the time's running out basically the European parliamentary term is about to end. The elec there's elections in early June and before that there's like a two month period for campaigning in the elections.

So it looked like there was no time to renegotiate a new deal. And now it seems like what I've heard, and I've been in Brussels over the past week speaking to people, and what I've heard, the information that's come out. yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n

strange meeting called EPSCO. Don't ask me to explain too much about what the hell that is, but it's a meeting of kind of economy and labour ministers in Europe. I mean some people are saying it might be that the Belgian presidency is able to convince Mae'n ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r

deals being thrashed out potentially. So we don't know if it's going to happen or not now. But I guess the one of the key things to recognise at this point is that even if a directive does happen now, it's nowhere near as ambitious as it was originally going to be, you know, it's not going to be as big a deal as it was originally going to be. Because when I was talking to you with the European Parliament proposal, we were looking at a a platform work directive which would have been

sort of the most ambitious anywhere in the world at that point. It would have been a kinda trailblazer internationally, I think. So that's definitely been pushed back now. It's not gonna be anything like that. But it's possible that still something could come from it within the next Yeah, that's a really great summation of everything that's been going on over the past year. You know, the one thing I would add just for people who are not familiar with the European

parliamentary process, you know, as you say, uh very democratic, uh as you've explained, is that the third body there is the Commission. So the Council represents the EU Member States and the Commission, I guess, is more of like the executive branch of of what's going on there. You know, you talked about how this proposal evolved over time, basically where you had this really ambitious proposal from the parliament and then was increasingly kind of watered down.

as it went through these negotiations with the council, often headed by kind of, you know, right wing governments who had the presidency of the council at the various times.

You kinda touched on this a bit, but how were people feeling about the state of the proposal as it was finally going up for these final votes and whether it was going to pass? Like was it a feeling that this if it would pass that it was still going to be really kind of transformative if it were to, you know, be accepted into law and have to be implemented by these member states, or was there a feeling that this opportunity had really kind of passed because it had been watered down so much?

I think it was somewhere in between, you know, a a feeling of like dejection and failure and a feeling of like triumph. I think it was kind of the thinking is we live to fight another day because basically what would have happened is that

One part would have been, you know, quite straightforwardly positive, which would have been the algorithmic rates. Because that would have been for all workers, regardless of employment status, all platform workers regardless of employment status, they could access them. But in terms of the key question of employment status, I think because they fight over the criteria, and that has been a big thing within the whole debate, you know, what c should there be a criteria

some states have proposed, you know, there should be five criteria and two are needed to trigger it. Some have proposed seven and three are needed to trigger it. Some have proposed no criteria. That's been a kind of big part of the the wrangling over it. All of that wrangling would have then just moved

to the capitals of Europe, you know, the twenty seven capitals of Europe who would have had these debates and process'cause there would have been a two year process. for the EU law to be transposed. So it'll be two years to have these debates and arguments and work out what that law at a national level should look like.

It's worth saying that it's in some ways kind of strange that the EU is is debating this because Labour law is a is a national competence within Europe, so it's perfectly possible for the twenty three Member States that voted to support this proposal. to introduce their own platform work regulation regardless of whether the EU pass a law or not, you know, they can they they have the competences

to do that. So it would have been possible to push for, you know, at national level anyway. But if this passed or if it does still pass, it would have been a requirement on those states to establish the presumption of employment and the criteria for and that sort of thing. So I think it was kind of like, you know, it's better than nothing definitely and it would have been something for the kind of movement that's that's campaigned around this issue for years now to build on, you know.

So I think it was looked at positively, but not the kind of transformative change that at one point looked possible.

And so I guess the feeling then, you know, from activists and and from platform workers and people who are engaged on this topic is that even though it was taking a lot of time, it was potentially worth it to do so because instead of just potentially getting progress in certain member states where there were governments that were more open to something like this, then there was the potential to push every member state to have to act on it through this directive.

instead of just having these national wins because one of the things that stood out to me as you were explaining this initially, this process began in twenty nineteen. We're now in twenty twenty four. You said there was two years to implementation, you know, once something is actually agreed.

So if you think about kind of the speed at which, you know, these companies do try to transform these sectors and do try to quote unquote disrupt the economy and society, you can see how this European government process is very unresponsive to these kind of immediate needs that workers and and people might have.

A hynny'n hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn s I think certain things missing from even the algorithmic rights part of this directive around upfront fares, you know, and dynamic pricing and all that sort of thing, which

as we we we might talk a little bit about later is is being key to Uber's newfound profitability. So in some ways it has already fallen a bit behind. I guess one thing though is Mae'n rhaid yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw So in in many ways I think a lot the reason why a lot of the of hopes were pinned on an EU law is because well one, that then covers

twenty seven member states in one go, right? So it's that's what, five hundred million workers or something like that. It's you know, it it covers a lot of people. And then two, that it's a kind of pragmatic thing that actually is something happening, you know, around this EU law whereas most countries in in Europe are are have been very slow to actually to actually move on this.

That makes a lot of sense. And when you talk about the positions of different countries, obviously Spain has been a real leader and really trying to push this forward. But obviously in order for it to be watered down at the council level, that means that there are a lot of countries that are not so engaged in this or that are engaged in the other direction and trying to water this down and make sure that there aren't strong platform worker rights.

Can you talk a bit about, you know, the the positions of kind of key countries that have been involved in the process and and how they have tried to shape this directive? As I said before, there's two countries which represent either side of this debate, you know, and have been polarising either side the whole way through. France on the one side, where Emmanuel Macron is the president, people may know that Emmanuel Macron was caught up in the Uberphiles scandal a couple of years ago.

Whereby it was revealed that all the way back in 2015, when he was an economy minister in another kind of socialist French. government. He had been working and collaborating with Uber to kind of defend their illegal entry into that country and even to defend you know violent protests and things like that that Uber drivers have been involved in and that sort of thing so Macron's role as a kind of

chief advocate for Uber has been longstanding and in since he's been French president since twenty seventeen. He's continued to do that quite openly, quite publicly, he'll say I believe this is, you know, part of the future of work. I believe these companies are innovative, that they're contributing to our economy. When he was asked about the Hugo File scandal, he said I would do it all over again, unashamed about his role. So in France, what they've established.

is what they call a social dialogue system as an alternative to platform workers' rights. Where basically there's a government arbitration body which sits between the platforms on the one side and worker representatives have been elected directly in a kind of process a couple of years ago. It's a very controversial system. A lot of the unions boycotted it. It's, you know, the platforms are a kind of dominant force within it. There's been strikes in fans recently which have exposed.

the limitations of that system that actually workers' wages continue to fall in food delivery and retail. So basically, cut a long story short, France are kind of at the vanguard of a group of states which are very kind of pro platform. Spain is on the other side with a kind of smaller group of states which are dedicated to the idea that there should be employment rights. I think an important thing about this is where Germany sits in this process.

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Germany is a coalition government led by the Social Democratic Party, the Social Democratic Labour Minister. Obviously, the Labour Minister is responsible for this file. Now what is claimed is that the smallest party in that co coalition, or kind of ultra liberal party called the Free Democratic Party, FDP, have blocked the German government from supporting the directive.

I find it a little bit ridiculous because not only are the smallest part in the coalition, not only do they not hold the Labour Ministry They're polling at under five percent and you need to get five percent in the German parliament to get any representatives. So right now it looks like they're going to be completely wiped out the next elections. So this idea they have such power to you know dictate the you know what the German government does at EU level.

Seems fanciful to me. A lot of journalists argue that that is the case, that basically they they do have that policy that if every party in the coalition doesn't support it then you can support it. But that's really disappointing for a lot of countries because the social democratic part of the European Parliament Has been massively pushing for this directive, for a a social democratic led government to be basically responsible for this directive not passing.

is pretty is pretty controversial and it's pretty pretty poor, you know. I think one thing I guess that's I haven't mentioned so far is that for a lot of people there's a a little bit of a sigh of relief that something worse hasn't been agreed because there was concern that if the council got its way there'd be a kind of European version of POP twenty two where you pass a law which binds member states.

into a a very weak criteria and it makes it very difficult for workers to access employment rights. And actually would be a step back because right now workers can go to court And win the case on a case-by-case basis. It's not very good. It doesn't help a lot of workers. But have you passed a law which was kind of underneath?

the kind of jurisprudence established in most courts around Europe could actually be damaging for workers' gems of access and their rights. There's that side of looking at it as well, that at least we didn't have a POP twenty two law and you know that it could have been worse.

Yeah, that's a really good point. And, you know, obviously that would be uh a terrible development, but it is good to hear some of the positions of those key countries because that really does shape the development, right? And as you say Countries like France and and I know the Swedish presidency was arguing this as well, was which is under a right wing government at the moment as well, Sweden, we're basically arguing that they have their own labor model, so why should they be

forced to kind of adapt to something that was going to be placed in the platform work directive that wouldn't align with the way that they treat kind of labor relations in their country, you know, which I I think is kind of a deceptive argument being put forward by

right when government's there. I wanted to ask as well about the positions of the platform companies. And there was a quote in I believe it was one of your newsletters, maybe it was an article you wrote or a tweet rather from Kim van Sparentak, uh an MEP for the Dutch Greens and deputy rapporteur on the platform work directive.

who tweeted Macron and the German liberals apparently consider the profits of large platform companies such as Uber and Deliveroo more important than better working conditions for the most precarious workers. Unfortunately, the tens of millions of euros in lobbying money have paid for themselves. And just a quick note for US listeners, when we say liberal in relation to the Free Democratic Party in Germany, that means kind of

you know, liberal in the economic sense, not in kind of the social sense as we usually use it in North America. But in thinking about the platform companies, how have they been engaged in this process? And have they been saying anything since the defeat of the platform work directive earlier this month.

So basically I I think the last time we spoke was just after the European Parliament passed its law and that and that was seen as kind of a a defeat of the platform lobby, right? Because they had really pushed So hard. MEPs have talked about the rapporteur and the directive, uh Elizabeth Galmini, she said in an interview she's never seen such a hard campaign by by a corporate lobby to push against

passing that proposal in the European Parliament. So the platform lobby lost that one, but they always had allies on the the member states, right? So they always had that as a kind of fallback to defend their position. I mean it's worth saying that the EU Brussels it's based in Brussels and Belgium and that city has

seventy thousand corporate lobbyists in it and there's only seven hundred members of the European Parliament. So you do the maths, it's it's quite dominated by the corporate lobbying. They move fully in the buildings and there's no doubt that they're influential. The platform lobby specifically massively beefed up its resources in Brussels. Uber has hired lots more people. They've established their own lobby groups. One's called MovieU, other's called Delivery Platforms Europe.

So they're really taking this seriously because they know if Uber had to employ its drivers and riders, you're talking about a twenty percent to thirty percent increase in their costs, right? As the directive had looked like it could be passed, like a strong directive could be negotiated. Hubert basically had a big piece in the Financial Times where he basically threatened that if this law passes

We are going to move out of hundreds of cities, abandon hundreds of cities across Europe, and what they call work opportunities. Because obviously they don't want to say jobs, but work opportunities. are gonna be slashed by, you know, hundreds of thousands or whatever if if the laws passed. Basically a kind of blackmail, this is gonna affect jobs if if you go through with this. Now, I think when the directive first came about in 2019, there was less concern around

unemployment issues in Europe than there had been during the peak of the Eurozone crisis, right? Around, you know, 2013, 2014. And there was more focus on precarious work. But I think one of the things that's happened is that as this post has developed, we've had the inflation crisis in Europe.

There's been more concern around, you know, employment issues in general. And I think that might have played a role in some of the Member States thinking, actually, you know, we don't want to be, you know, hundreds of thousands of less platform workers in in Europe. So I think that those tactics

of able to focus on job losses, although they won't call it job losses, to focus on pulling out of cities. I think that probably has had an impact on some of the member states, you know, and pulling back from a stronger directive.

they'll be pretty happy i think with this outcome they're staying very quiet at the moment they don't want to be gloating about it obviously and you know because the process isn't over But I think if if there's no directive they will be they'll be pretty happy, although it's not the the most desirable outcome as I said would have I kinda prop twenty two law for Europe.

Yeah, th that's a really good point. And I I think it's interesting to look at how you know, I don't know how it feels in Europe, but it feels like the reporting that we used to have on kind of Uber's legal campaign to enforce like a prop twenty two like, you know, way of governing the

platform economy, I guess, has really fallen off in North America in the past couple of years. Like there's less focus on it since, you know, the aftermath of Prop twenty two was kind of experienced, even as they continue this push in many more places, but like the focus just shifted to other things. after Prop twenty two. And I also think it's interesting then to see the power that they've been able to wield in order to try to do these things and how

You know, as as always, they take advantage of these economic conditions when they turn negative in order to benefit themselves. You know, obviously Uber was founded during the last financial crisis and of course grew in Europe during the Eurozone crisis. And now that people are struggling again, Uber has been able to take advantage of that.

for itself, even as all these workers who, you know, deliver the service on its platform are struggling. You know, it's a company that benefits from this precarity, which is obviously why it fights so much to to keep it in place. Yes, I mean I think uh Kozu Shahi actually openly said, didn't he, that, you know, the inflation crisis was good for Uber because it was pushing people to drive, you know, get back in the car after the pandemic and start driving term.

you know, additional income. And obviously they've had an onslaught on wages. And that's been in uh the United States, that's been in Europe. I mean right now there's there's strikes going on in the UK, food delivery strikes, and that's all about the fact that over the last three or four years the pay rates for food delivery cures has been slashed, you know, they've really fallen pretty sharply.

So yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, Uber is a company that thrives on put it this way, it can only maintain its precarious model due to a wider context in the labour market of precarity, you know, where people are vulnerable and are pushed to do these sorts of jobs at these sorts of pay rates. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I feel like the focus when we talk about the platform work directive and so many of these legislative proposals is on the employment piece, right?

and, you know, whether or not we're going to have that presumption of employment or employment status for these platform workers. But as you said, you know, at the beginning that there's a whole other piece of this surrounding data rights and and making sure that workers have rights to the data that the platforms are collecting on them, that there are rules around the the data that can be collected on them.

Can you talk a bit more about that piece and why that is important? And, you know, I know that Spain kind of started to move on this a couple of years ago. Has there been any progress in the Spanish case on the data rights for platform?

That's a good question actually, because my understanding is that the the Spanish laws end up being a lot more limited and difficult to access. than than it was originally hoped when it was passed back in twenty twenty one. I lose track of the years, but I think it was twenty twenty one that the Ryder the Ryder law was passed. And basically the idea of in within that law, as well as the employment status

was that union representatives would be able to access the data. First of all, it's difficult to be a union representative for a lot of these workers, right? Because the vast majority are self employed. Who do you collectively bargain with if they're they're still self employed?

I won't go into the whole story of why they're still self-employed in Spain, but basically it's because the platforms like Uber Eats and Glovo, the two main platforms, are still refusing to employ them despite the passing of the law. But I I understand that where they have grocery delivery riders who are employed, that there is union representatives in some of those, you know, warehouses like dark stores that they're they operate out of.

and that they have tried to access data rights and that sort of thing, but it's quite difficult to do it. Under current EU law, which which is called the General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, it is possible for any Consumer or worker is to submit an application to say, I want you to give me the data you hold on me. Right? Now I've looked at some uh sort of case studies of workers in Geneva, uh Uber drivers in Geneva who have

put in GDPR requests and got the information. And it's very, very difficult for those workers to make sense of the the data they they're given. You know, it's not perfectly legible. But if they have the help of data scientists and stuff like that, they can make use of it. they combine it with other methods of like scraping data and and that sort of thing to try to work out. So in Geneva the case was basically the court found that the workers were actually employees and had to have backdated pay.

But how do you decide how much backday pay you should have? You have to access the data, right? But Uber controls the data. So Uber said we owe this much money to these workers.

And those workers, with the help of data scientists and a group called personaldata dot IO, they basically said, Here's our true data of what we we owed and we're actually owed this much award more So there is some examples in Europe of of GDPR already being used to access data and information, but it's quite limited and, you know, it's very difficult for an individual worker to do i do think trade unions should be invested more in these sorts of tools

I think what that really says to me as well or or really makes clear is the real difference in like the power that the workers have between the platform companies themselves, right? Because there can be a law or there can be a court ruling that says you have these rights, you can take advantage of these rights.

But then the platform companies themselves can completely ignore them or can take years to even force a law to go through the courts in order to be kind of sorted out there. so that they can constantly delay the implementation of these rights that go in favor of the workers if those even exist, right? You know, we look in California where the workers achieved A B five.

And then Uber, of course, found ways and the other platform companies through getting the Prop 22 ballot measure to move forward and kind of deceptively, you know, telling the public what that would be about. But of course in Spain where we see them as you say. you know, not following what the writer's law I guess would

hope is actually going to happen there enforcing this really long implementation process because they see that as being beneficial to them. Or for example, in the UK, where the Supreme Court found that the workers should be considered this worker status which is above

independent contractor, but then Uber just turned it into basically its own prop twenty two in the UK against what the ruling actually found or what the workers say the ruling has found and now they've had to go back to the court again. to try to get Uber to actually observe what the Supreme Court said that they should be doing. So it just shows time and again how these companies have the power to be able to do that. And It really

speaks to me or really shows me that this is in part, I think, a product of the fact that these companies operate on such a large scale, right? They're not just operating in this one city where the taxi workers that work for a taxi company can unionize and push back against them and try to win particular rights and get a city to regulate what the taxi industry is going to look like.

But instead now you have these companies that operate on, you know, a continental level or even a global level that have so much more power and money to just throw at these things to stop workers from achieving any degree of power or rights or or what have you.

Absolutely, yeah. I think one thing I've learned from looking at these different kind of legislative battles is the implementation is as important as the actual legislation. And if states aren't willing to really act on legislation or aren't resourced, which is a big issue that, you know, Labour inspectorates aren't don't actually have the resources to act on the legislation.

Platforms will find ways around it. I think that's part of the business model of these platforms is to work within legal grey areas, to find loopholes, they pay expensive corporate lawyers to do that work. So you don't just need to pass legislation, you need to have states which are dedicated to fighting to make it happen. And I guess you also need unions and workers

to push those states as well to act on the legislation. So it doesn't stop when you you pass a law. In fact, in some ways that's just the beginning of the the fight to actually hold these companies to account. Absolutely. And I think as you say, Spain and these other examples really show us that that's the case, right? And really show us how important the implementation side is, not just achieving the law in the first place.

Now, obviously as we've talked about, the uh platform work directive came up for vote on February sixteenth and was defeated. You know, as you say, France voted against it and Germany, Estonia and Greece Abstained, and this was enough to ensure that the platform work directive won't move forward, at least, you know, in this kind of current phase.

because that was enough to block it, even though that would have meant about I think sixty-five percent of the states by population were still in favor of it, and eighty-eight percent of the states, I think it would have been by number, were still in favor of it. So what does this say about the future of the rights of platform workers in the European Union? You know, you were at this conference last week in Brussels.

Where unions and platform workers and advocates for the rights of platform workers kind of came together. What are they thinking about? what the fight is going to look like moving forward after this vote on the Platform Work Directive at the European Union level. Yeah, it's interesting because when this initiative for for this directive came about

It was part of a kind of broader suite of measures that the EU wanted to take around what we called continuing an economy that works for people, right? Now in Europe for decades we've talked about a European social model, right? That Europe stands out as being a place in the world where there's employment protections for workers, where there's a welfare state to fall back on. That doesn't exist then. United States and many other countries, especially obviously in the global south.

is kind of symbolic of the decline of the European social model. It was always a a kind of exaggerated thing, right? Because there's always been poverty in Europe. It's not like this some sort some sort of paradise is you know, really, really not. Um but I think it is the case that there was some level of employment protections for all workers and that you didn't at some point have the level of precaution that that you see now. At a kind of broader political level should be registered

that the EU has failed to deliver, you know, protection and protect the European social model with with this law. So in Brussels last week there was two big conferences, two big platform work conferences. The first was a trade union one, held by the European Trade Union Institute, and that was like uh a lot of researchers and academics and that sort of thing.

The second one was the Alternatives to Uberisation Forum, which is organised by the Left Group in the European Parliament. That's the fourth of those conferences, and that's been a key hub. for platform workers and activists around Europe to meet with, you know, supportive politicians and that sort of thing and and organise. So coming just days after the the defeat of the Platform Work Directive

There was a lot of disappointment in the room, that was quite clear. People were not trying to hide that, that th they were disappointed about the way it went. Rydyn ni'n ymwneud â'n ymwneud â'n ymwneud â'n ymwneud â'n ymwneud â'n ymwneud â'n ymwneud â'n ymwneud â'r amser.

was that they would establish a permanent network that would operate independently of what's happening at the EU, independently of whether there's a a platform or directive or not, that would meet annually, that would coordinate actions, and it would try to maintain what's been built up, which is a network of trade unions and of what's called workers' collectives, you know, grassroots work organisation, um, which is kind of organised around this directive across Europe.

And they would try to keep that going. So that I think that was the positive thing the the big positive thing to come out of the conference. That the workers and activists that are dedicated to this aren't giving up, they're gonna keep fighting, they're gonna try to take

If there's no EU law, try to take it to the national level and pursue it there. There's some people that have said after the next European elections that this could come up again, but I think most people I spoke to seem to think that was a dead end. If it doesn't happen now...

Then it's not going to happen later because It's expected that the far right is going to do well in the European parliamentary elections and that the balance around this law in the European Parliament will become more unfavourable. after European elections. So it's just not seen as like a kind of now or never sort of thing for a European law. If not a European law then, you know, the activists are thinking about how they can go back and fight for a law at the the national level.

Yeah, and I think that's a really good point. And I did want to bring up the political angle to this as well, right? Because as we have been having these discussions about platform workers' rights in Europe, you know, whether it was last year or again here, you know, the politics of the various governments involved has been quite important to shaping, you know, their various perspectives on this and whether it's been able to move forward.

And so as you say, it seems unlikely that it would come up again after June, after the European parliamentary elections, because it looks like the right wing and the far right in particular are going to do well. But what does that also say about a strategy to try to move this forward on the national level? You know, as you said, there was twenty three member states who voted in favor of the platform work directive. So I guess my questions are

Have any of those member states signaled that they're ready to move forward on a national level to do something if the platform work directive isn't moving forward? And then the second piece of that would be You know, we know that there is this kind of general shift to the right. It seems to be happening in European politics and and with various national governments. Does that make that more difficult then to achieve?

I think probably there would have been more chance of passing a directive if certain governments hadn't fallen into the hands of the right wing, right? So Greece is an example of that, I think. I can't remember what year now, but certainly in the last couple of years the main right-wing party New Democracy won a majority and that wouldn't have happened if...

you know, I've got lots of criticisms of the this main centre left party in Greece, Sarisa, they wouldn't have supported the the kind of blocking minority of states on the the European Council. So that's happened already and

if the slide to the the right and the far right continues then then we could expect that would continue to happen. I'm not aware of any countries saying yet that, you know, they're gonna act on this at the at the national level. I think probably everyone's waiting to see what happens exactly, whether something can be agreed or or not, so, you know, to be seen in in terms of that.

No, that makes sense. Then we'll have to follow that and uh, you know, read your newsletter to get the updates on what's going on there. You know, as we start to kind of close off our conversation, I wanted to pivot away from the platform work directive a bit, unless you think that there's anything else that people should know about that.

Um to talk a bit about Uber, right? We recently had Uber report its first annual profit that seems to be at least somewhat legitimate, you know, using like proper accounting standards instead of its made-up accounting standards. What is your your thinking on the state of Uber these days as it reports this first annual profit and as, you know, it's trying to

send this narrative at least to financial markets that after fifteen years the model is finally working and it's paying off and it's proving that it's a good business and all this kind of stuff. What is your take on Uber? Well, let me first direct people to your newsletter, Disconnect, where there's an excellent piece exactly about Uber's profits and what it says about the company and where it's going. So you've already said it in your newsletter better than I can. Well I would say it's

Well I would say is that my understanding of how Uber has got to this point of of profitability. I mean for one thing it's still quite a lot of that profit comes from its equity stakes, right? Felly mae'n ei wneud, mae'n cael ei wneud, mae'n cael ei wneud, mae'n cael ei wneud, mae'n cael ei wneud, mae'n cael ei wneud, mae'n cael ei wneud, mae'n cael ei wneud, mae'n cael ei wneud, mae'n cael ei wneud, mae'n cael ei wneud, mae'n cael ei wneud, mae'n cael ei wneud yn cael ei wneud.

drivers and riders, the commission takes on every or on every trip has gone up, I think t something like twenty eight percent, if I remember correctly. So basically it's used this new form of payment system, upfront fares. Well, what's called upfront fares you get to see before you accept the task, accept the delivery or the journey, how much you'll be paid for it, but you don't have any

Understanding as a driver or rider why you're being offered that pay rate. It's not related to the distance travelled, it's not related to the time it takes to do the trip. And basically Uber has an algorithmic way of determining those pay rates which include behavioural patterns of the drivers. Now, I did a piece just after Uber announced her Q4 2023 results, where Daya Khosrowshahi had an investor call and he was asked about upfront fares.

Right. And I tried to contact Uber to see if they would deny that that's what they meant. They based their pay rates based on the prior personal data history of each driver. They didn't respond to that. I've had some people respond to my article by saying that

you know, that it's not true, they mean something else. But actually I think Diakoshahi's statement is crystal clear. I don't fe I don't really see how you could interpret it in in any any other way. It's absolutely clear that they do do this what Professor Vina de Baal's called algorithmic wage discrimination between you know different drivers again the the same chip for a different price. So that's how Uber have got there. In terms of what it means for the company

Long term future has obviously done this share buyback scheme now. They're trying to boost the the share value even more. It looks like Darkus Rahi is gonna cash in with his big fifty million bonus. So it's good news for DIE but I I still don't think I mean if if they continued at the current rates of profits It would take a long, long, long time for our shareholders to make their money back. So I still don't think the company is some sort of shining example of profitability.

And I also think that if economic circumstances change then we've already talked about how the macroeconomic environment can affect Uber's model. And of course if regulations come in which you know, increase the security for for drivers and and riders, that will affect Uber's profitability. So I think it's too early to say Uber's defeated its critics, you know, it's gonna be a a profitable company for the for the long term. Like let's see how it develops over the next few years.

I obviously completely agree with that. I think just to kind of put it into context for listeners, Uber reported a profit of one point nine billion dollars. US of course in twenty twenty three. Um one point six billion of that, as you were saying, comes from equity stakes that it holds in other companies. So the actual profit itself

that it claims to have made is, you know, in the three hundred ish million mark. And over the past ten years it's burned over thirty one billion dollars to fund its model. One of the things that

kind of stood out to me is obviously on the one hand, you know, what you were saying about Kosar Shahi's admission that they are looking at the behavioral patterns of drivers. And I feel like you know, to me that really sounded like this guy is excited, like things are going well, and he like accidentally let this slip out or like made the proper admission of what the company is actually doing after all this time.

But then there's the other piece of this where I feel like the narrative doesn't reflect what is actually going on here and and also the actions that Uber is taking. Like as we were saying, the profit is quite small that it actually made after all of this time and it's a it's an annual profit, not even a quarterly profit, right? When we're talking about if it was three hundred million quarterly profit, that would be a bit more impressive than like

for the whole year, even still not very impressive, but still. On top of that, you know, they say that they've made this three hundred million dollars, but now Kosar Shahi's talking about a seven billion dollar share buyback. Like where is this money coming from? There was the talk of a potential dividend, which is not coming for now, it could come in the future.

And then of course, since this has happened, he's been making investments in different companies. He's been talking up Uber's business in India, saying that he wants to massively expand it there, which is I think going to be a difficult market for them to make very much money in.

on one hand, the narrative that Uber is amazing and it's doing great and that it's doing this massive share buyback and that it's it's making all these investments and growing its business because everything is going great doesn't line up to me with We made three hundred million dollars last year and and now that is apparently a big change. Like I I don't know, these things are not working.

Yeah, I think you're right. And I think that Uber, there's a lot of triumphalism right now around Uber. There's a lot of, in the financial press, they're reporting it. And, you know, people saying, Kersershaw has turned the ship round and all that sort of thing. And I think... It might be premature. To add in one thing about this, because It's also worth thinking about the wider sector, right? That they're operating in, you know, food delivery and retail. A lot of the other companies are really

struggling still. That does give you an indication that this is a sector where it's hard to make a lot of money, it always traditionally has been. If you take one example, the German multinational delivery hero which has brands like Glovo, like Food Panda in Asia

Fudeu in countries like Austria and Sweden, their stock prices hit the floor recently after they announced that they were selling their stake in Delivu, the British food delivery platform, under the value of those shares'cause they need to raise money. Glovo, one of Del Vuhu's main brands who we've already spoken about, they are now telling the courts in Spain that they can't pay their fines for bogus self employment.

because they have no money and they're in an extreme financial situation and their parent company delivery who has no money. And I don't know why the courts are doing this, but they're letting them suspend the payment of the fines, you know? So that's just to give an insight into people might think that like these sectors somehow are kind of out of the woods, you know, and it's like a kind of stable financial situation.

Yn ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud. Yn ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud. very, very difficult. So the whole certainly the the focus of like me know my reporting on on location, gig work, like food delivery and retail, it's still a sector that is, I think, financially vulnerable.

Yeah, I I think that's a really good point. And I I think that's helpful to have the European perspective on that, right? Because one of the things about the North American market is that it's so dominated by Uber and and what Uber does. Of course, there are a few different delivery platforms, but like with ride hailing, the only real alternative is lift for the most part, and they're not doing uh particularly well.

either. So Uber does really seem to stand out here. And I think that also kind of backs up the point that the rhetoric that we're getting about how Uber is doing does not back the reality of how that company is looking. And I think part of that relates to just wanting to pump up the share price, wanting to make things look good on paper, in part so people can get out so Kostra Shahi can get his bonus. you know, and and be able to kind of take advantage of the stock options that he has.

But also I'm sure that there are some investors in there that have been with the company for a long time that see this this as an opportunity to finally cash out when the share price is high because it has gone up significantly. in recent months and in particular since these numbers were reported around its its kind of quarterly profit. I think the other question I have for you around Uber is

really around its kind of future focused endeavors, like what it's trying to do in order to cement its power. And one of the things that has always stood out to me and that I feel like has been under focused on is the growing number of deals that it's signing with taxi companies around the world in order to bring taxi companies onto its app and then kind of control the mediation of rides to taxi companies.

I wonder what you make of what it's doing there and the influence that it gives it then over taxi companies in various markets. There's no doubt about it that that's part of their strategy in Europe now is to bring the taxi sector onto the app. achieve that in parts of Italy, for example. They're trying to do that with in the UK with the black cabs. I think the the black cabs in London are are resisting that so far.

Um and this is all part of Uber becoming the transport super app, you know, where you go to Uber not just for retail or food delivery, but your flights, for you know, anything to do with transport, bus tickets, that's what they want to sell it as. But to achieve that, certainly in Europe to achieve that, you would have to convince governments to tap into the public sector, you know, the basically municipal, local bus services and and publicly owned train services.

which is still most of the continent is still publicly owned, not all not all of it, they would go onto Uber's app. And that's a difficult sell for Uber. But where I'm sitting in Europe I don't see the transport super being realised any time soon. I I think the other thing they're doing in Europe is they're pushing the idea that Uber's green, you know, that it's supporting electric vehicles, reducing carbon emissions.

Rydyn ni'n llawer o beth yw'r hyn sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n. the cars drive around whilst they're looking for work and y use up petrol and there's studies which suggest that Uber is less green than than if you owned your your own car. But they're trying to push the argument of sustainability with the EU and to get access funds. I think I think part of Uber's long term model is to cap it into public infrastructure.

And there's some cases and like some parts of Europe where they're they're managing to do that, but it's still it's still they're still a long way off that. I think that that is a potential model where Uber could be, you know, sustainably profitable in the long term if they somehow manage to get their hands on public infrastructure. But that's still an uphill battle.

Absolutely. And the stuff you say around sustainability makes a ton of sense because we're seeing that argument in North America as well, where they're trying to present themselves as green and going electric and all this kind of stuff and, you know, mainly putting the cost of that on the drivers, but making it seem like it's this great kind of corporate thing that they're up to.

The one other thing I would want to ask you about as we kind of close this off is I know that there were a series of strikes recently in Europe. Can you talk to us a bit about what is going on there and and what these workers are demanding when they're going on strike against these companies? So it was in the UK and it's one of the most remarkable strikes in the economy that I've seen and it's still ongoing. So it began on the 2nd of February, it was the first strike.

There was another big one on Valentine's Day. Uh there was another one on last Friday, twenty third of February, and they say they're gonna continue on every Friday in bank holidays until not just Uber Eats but all the food delivery platforms give them a pay rise. One of the remarkable things about it is it was completely grassroots organised. So it started with a Brazilian community of riders, sped to other communities.

But whilst being grassroots organised, it was extremely well organised. So they had in every locality they had maps where they looked where do we want to have picket? What restaurants do we want to go to? What uh dark kitchens do we want to shut down? They had a captain in every place to kind of make sure the each locality was well organized and that sort of thing. And all this was organized just through WhatsApp groups. Just

ri riders themselves organise themselves in WhatsApp groups and doing it and it was quite remarkable to see that and the effect of the strike was absolutely huge. So Boobo Eats and Deliver they started offering riders massively higher rates for deliveries because they were struggling to you know get a supply. So they were trying to use higher rates for deliveries to kind of break the the strike.

There was on social media there was customers complaining that they couldn't access the app. There was evidence that food was piling up in lots of restaurants. So really exciting to see that, that a strike in the food delivery sector could be so powerful could just basically seem to come out of nowhere and have a real effect on the platforms. And it just shows you that, you know, we're talking about legislation, talking about employment status, unions and all that.

At the end of the day, all workers need to fight their their corner is it's a lot of determination and and a WhatsApp group or you know, it could be Signal, it could be on Telegram, whatever. You know, like workers are capable of fighting for their interests even regardless of what the the politicians do. Yeah, take the digital tools and and use them against the bosses and the tech companies that

have created them. You know, I I think that's great to hear. And it's I think it's a great story to end off this conversation around the defeat of this platform work directive, but we can clearly see that that doesn't mean that the fight for platform work rights in Europe, including the UK, is over. You know, this will continue to move forward and these actions like we've seen in the UK with these strikes will be an important part of pushing these companies to do something greater.

But hopefully this also means not just having to rely on the workers to do these individual actions, but also forcing governments to finally hold these companies to account if it's not on the European level then on the national level in order to make sure that, as you say, that this model that erodes kind of the social fabric and and the employment rights that

workers have had for a long time is not able to take hold in in the way that, you know, it seems to be working and and trying to do so. So Ben, it's always fantastic to speak with you to, you know, get an update on what's going on over on your side of the pond. Thanks so much for taking the time. Ben Ray is the coordinator of the Gay Economy Project and the author of Scotland After Britain.

Tech Won's Save Us is made in partnership with The Nation magazine and is hosted by me, Paris Marks. Production is by Eric Wickham and transcripts are by Bridget Pelou Fry. Tech Won's Save Us relies on the support of listeners like you to keep providing critical perspectives on the tech industry. You can join hundreds of other supporters by going to patreon.com slash techwon'save us and making a pledge of your own. Thanks for listening. Make sure to come back next week.