EU: Commission improves self-employed workers’ access to collective bargaining

After proposing, at the end of last year, a directive under which platform workers would be deemed, by virtue of a legal presumption, to be in an employment relationship with the platform (see article n°12820), the European Commission wants to enable collective bargaining between self-employed workers and companies employing their services. On 29 September, the European Union’s executive arm adopted a set of guidelines aimed at workers for whom the presumption of an employment relationship, proposed by the December 2021 directive, will not apply. The guidelines specify how competition law applies to solo self-employed workers, with the Commission undertaking not to take action as part of its work against anti-competitive practices when solo self-employed workers wish to strike collective agreements on working conditions with their contractors. The text will apply to solo self-employed people whose situation is comparable to workers, including those who provide services exclusively or predominantly to one company, those who work side-by-side with workers, and those who provide services to or via a digital platform. Other self-employed workers, with no employees of their own, who wish to negotiate with companies employing more than 10 people, with a turnover exceeding €2 million or representing an entire economic sector, are also affected. Meetings between the European institution and the European social partners will take place to monitor the implementation of the text.