The Finnish Government has published its proposal for a minimum implementation of the transposition of the Platform Work Directive.
The draft proposal follows a one and a half year tripartite negotiation involving union and employer organisations. The Confederation of Finnish Trade Unions SAK and STTK have expressed their opposition to the proposal, on the basis that it does not ensure the legal protection of persons performing platform work nor the improvement of their terms and conditions. The unions expressed in a dissenting opinion the inadequacy in the draft proposal of the “legal presumption, intermediaries, the prohibition of retaliation, and official supervision and sanctions”. They also challenged the principle of a minimum implementation, arguing that instead the principle should be ensuring the most effective implementation of the purpose of the directive.
“It seems as if the drafting has sought to just barely include the requirements of the directive into legislation without anything really changing in practise,” PAM President Rönni-Sällinen said. “If the draft legislation were to be enacted, for example the couriers PAM represents would still have to carry the risks of illness, injury and weak working conditions.”
You can read the PAM union’s full statement on the proposal here.
Johannes Anttila, Finnish policy advisor at the European Parliament, was also critical of the proposal, arguing that it “risks muddying the waters in the wake of a landmark Supreme Administrative Court decision this year that deemed Wolt riders are employees.”
Anttila added that the legal presumption of employment in the proposal was “set at an unrealistically high level” for workers to trigger the presumption and that it would require employment status to be decided on a worker-by-worker level, rather than a mechanism for deciding for a whole company or sector. You can read Anttila’s full analysis here.