Not only in Hungary, but also in the other countries of the European Union, the employment relationship hidden behind a contractual relationship with an individual entrepreneur causes serious difficulties. As in our country, the employment of employees as entrepreneurs is widespread in most countries of the European Union.
This is beneficial for the employer, as terminating the contractual relationship is much simpler than terminating the employment relationship, and this looser relationship is also financially more worthwhile.
At the same time, this is less advantageous for the employee, since in most Member States the employer rather gains a substantial financial advantage, and the employer does not have to take into account the rights and obligations of the employees.
The rights of the employee contracted as a contractor are significantly curtailed by this practice. In addition, bad practice is gaining ground as a result of the accelerating digital economic revolution. Recently, partly as a result of the epidemic, services provided on digital platforms, primarily through mobile applications, have become part of our daily lives almost overnight. was also new for employees , and the previous labor law rules cannot be applied to digital solutions.
Due to the lack of regulation and the rapid rise of platforms, the generally widespread practice is the subcontractor relationship. In reality, however, the operators of the platforms treat the actual service providers as employees, but asserting the interests of the employees is almost impossible, since there is virtually no personal relationship between the owners of the mobile app service providers and the employees. The traditional boss-subordinate relationship is provided by algorithms, automatic control and task allocation solutions, the operation of which is opaque on the one hand, and the possibility of human intervention is limited on the other.
The practice of undermining the rights of employees led to the emergence of a second-order labor market operating in a gray zone. Harmful processes and lack of regulation can be hindered by directive The essence of this is that the employee cannot be vulnerable to the invisible operators of the applications.
The essence of the regulation, which is binding on all European Union countries and relevant economic actors, is to clearly define the conditions which, if partially fulfilled, would make it mandatory to employ the relevant employee as an employee. In practice, this means simple and clear aspects. The most basic of these include working hours, work-related expectations and control.
In practice, this means that if the platform operators determine, for example, the working hours of a food courier who contracts as a private enterprise, expect him to be available, instruct him, keep his work under constant control, or even require him to dress in accordance with the image of the platform, then he is practically treated as an employee the individual entrepreneur concerned. In this case, the contractual relationship would automatically turn into an employment relationship.
The practice of a disguised employment relationship with the company makes the employee vulnerable to the employer and deprives him of the rights and benefits provided by the employment relationship. Among other things, employees are entitled to basic rights such as paid vacation, health and pension insurance, collective or individual advocacy, protection during illness or pregnancy, and advocacy assistance.
Another important element of the regulation is to ensure that the worker is not vulnerable to automation: the EU directive would also encourage the transparent operation of the algorithms that form the basis of the operation of the platforms, the possibility of human intervention and the avoidance of abuses related to data protection.
For now, the question is how to extend the EU rules to platform operators operating in Europe, but not registered on the continent.
Since changing the location of the platform operators does not significantly affect the maintenance of the service, closing this loophole would be essential for effective employee advocacy in the midst of the digital revolution.
Source: magyarnemzet.hu
Opening image: Illustration (Photo: adotanoda.hu)
