SMEs & Platform Work:
Balancing Job Creation, Innovation and Social Protection

On 8 December 2021, the European Commission will announce the new EU proposal on platform work, with the objective of ‘improving the conditions of platform workers’. The proposal comes out at a critical time. The COVID pandemic has indeed shown the key role of platforms for our economy, while at the same time exacerbating the precarious conditions in which platform workers often operate.

That’s why, when we need more jobs and not less, it is paramount that the upcoming proposal sets the right policy conditions necessary to embrace this new form of work. At the same time it has to provide a framework to cater to platform worker needs and to ensure fair working conditions to all.

Several European countries already installed reforms regulating platform work. With its new “rider law” Spain aimed to give delivery couriers job security and reliable wages. However the efficiency of the approach forcing an employment relationship has been put to question with platform workers facing lower pay, 8k jobs already lost, and platforms leaving the market. Other European countries, like for example Greece and France, are taking different approaches. Reforms that recognize the importance of flexibility, social dialogue mechanisms were enabled and social protection for all platform workers was enhanced.

We will bring policy and industry experts, as well as workers together to have an open dialogue and exchange on learnings and further ideas. We want to discuss how progressive rules can combine social protections and sustainable growth in the sector, bridging the need for better working conditions in flexible forms of work.