BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Europe's attempt to give workers at Uber, Deliveroo and other online platforms more social and labour rights failed a second time after France and three other countries abstained from voting on the watered-down political deal. Belgium, the current holder of the rotating EU presidency, is unlikely to muster enough support for yet another attempt, especially as the European Parliament which has to endorse a final deal, gradually winds down ahead of elections in June. Still, it was doubtful whether the weaker provisional agreement would have benefited gig workers as it stripped out key criteria determining whether a worker was an employee, in effect maintaining the status quo which is currently based on national laws and court rulings.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Europe's attempt to give workers at Uber, Deliveroo and other online platforms more social and labour rights failed a second time after France and three other countries abstained from voting on the watered-down political deal. Belgium, the current holder of the rotating EU presidency, is unlikely to muster enough support for yet another attempt, especially as the European Parliament which has to endorse a final deal, gradually winds down ahead of elections in June. Still, it was doubtful whether the weaker provisional agreement would have benefited gig workers as it stripped out key criteria determining whether a worker was an employee, in effect maintaining the status quo which is currently based on national laws and court rulings.
Belgium, the current holder of the rotating EU presidency, is unlikely to muster enough support for yet another attempt, especially as the European Parliament which has to endorse a final deal, gradually winds down ahead of elections in June.
The European Commission is trying to rally support from EU countries to endorse a watered-down political agreement on the rights of workers at Uber, Deliveroo and other online companies, according to a document seen by Reuters on Thursday. The move by the EU, which proposed the draft rules in 2021, came ahead of a meeting of ambassadors from the 27 EU countries on Friday to vote on the provisional deal clinched by Belgium, current holder of the EU presidency, with EU lawmakers last week. Failure to pass the legislation would leave an estimated 40 million gig workers in Europe and also the online platform companies to the mercy of a patchwork of rules and legal uncertainty.
The Karnataka labour department said getting information from aggregators is proving to be a huge challenge as they are not willing to share their worker database