Portugal is one of the countries of the European Union where the workers of the digital transport and delivery platforms do not have all their rights guaranteed, according to a report published this week and quoted by the Público newspaper in this Sunday’s edition.
This is a study carried out by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions at the request of the European Commission, to assess whether EU Member States guarantee labor rights to self-employed workers — and the The conclusion is that, among the EU members, only Germany guarantees all rights to these workers.
According to Público, four criteria were studied: union representation, the right to collective bargaining, existence of a minimum wage and collectively agreed minimum prices.
Regarding Portugal, the report states that the country guarantees self-employed workers “extended representation rights and collective bargaining rights”. On the other hand, it is not guaranteed that the national minimum wage, which is provided by law, applies to the majority of self-employed workers, only to some groups, such as “the legal or medical professions”.
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Finally, in Portugal there is no possibility of collective agreements to define the prices of services.
Among those most affected by the lack of these legal guarantees are workers associated with digital platforms such as Uber, Bolt, Free Now or Glovo, among others, who provide individual transportation (TVDE) and delivery services.
In Portugal there are more than 40,000 drivers registered with TVDE, according to the Institute of Mobility and Transport.
“The price list is not known by the drivers at all, let alone negotiated,” union leader Paulo Machado, of the Portuguese Urban and Highway Transport Workers Union, who represents several TVDE drivers, told Público.
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The report identified very different realities throughout the territory of the European Union, where only Germany stands out for guaranteeing the four rights under study. In all other countries, one or more of these labor guarantees are not guaranteed.
The idea of the report is to provide Brussels with information on how minimum wages can be applied to the reality of self-employed workers, with a view to a future European directive aimed at increasing the labor rights of these workers.
Source: Observadora
