14 days left. On August 12, and practically a year late, the Rider Law will come into force. Its objective, to change from head to toe the DNA of an entire sector that had grown under a form of business, linked to the sector rider, which now passes away.
Based on the concept of freelancers, and TRADE in an evolution, on the table was the shadow of labor. Were the distributors of platforms such as Glovo, Deliveroo or Uber Eats false freelancers? After years of escalating the case in the courts with answers for and against all parties, the Supreme Court ended up ruling against the platforms themselves. Glovo was the first to accept the Institution’s words and set the tone for the future of the sector.
On the idea of the Supreme, the strongest letter for majority unions and the Labor Portfolio, the Rider Law was created. Development was debated in lengthy negotiations that ended nowhere. The final result, in any case, was clear: Work already warned that, with the agreement or not of the parties, the regulations would. And it came out, although the reality is that almost no one liked it.
The platforms, with the exception of Just Eat, considered that the model was not suitable. The riders against ending their autonomous regime did not agree and those who had been calling for the reform considered that there was a lot of noise and little result. Conclusion, the Rider Law was born to please no one.
The first consequences of the Rider Law
After the initial impact, some consequences. Glovo, for its part, decided to leave the employer’s association that had been defending its interests at the negotiating tables. They considered that the decision to give in on some of the key points of the standard did not suit their interests as a platform.
The other consequence came from the hand of the riders themselves. One after another, and according to the text of the Rider Act, it climbed through Congress, APRA and Repartidores Unidos demonstrated to change the course of events. Spoiler: nothing happened. The collective was hoping that some of the amendments to the Rider Act would go through. The reality is that none of the parties that had taken the photo with the group at the gates of Congress presented any amendment.
Now there are two windows open, according to Jordi Mateo, president of APRA, to Hypertextual. They have hope in the appeal presented by Vox and the Popular Party before the Constitutional Court “considering that there was no reason to create this law by urgent means.” Also that the text gets stuck in the Senate. The reality is that neither option has the ballots to work, at least in the short term. The first one can take years, and the second rarely occurs.
Under the shadow of ETTs and surprise models
And while all this was happening, the platforms got down to work. Essential structures of their business models had to be changed in just a few weeks.
The first signs pointed to something that had been sounding for a long time: practically none would make internal hires and most of the riders would become part of Temporary Employment Agencies (ETT). They were some pilot projects that tried to put things in order before the deadline.
The result for Jordi Mateo has already translated into precariousness for the riders, as he has seen Hypertextual, which has had access to some of the contracts that the platforms have been testing with their distributors.
The general result for Mateo translates into precariousness. “The platforms are taking refuge in that legal precariousness and it will be very difficult to achieve improvements in that regard. These types of jobs already existed and are legal, much to our regret “, Explain. And he anticipates that, under no circumstances, will they join the unions that had been working in favor of the Rider Law. If the text goes ahead, despite all the tests that remain along the way, their mission will be to put pressure on the platforms.
The case of Uber Eats
Contracts of between 15 and 20 hours, with the contribution of the mobile and means of transport by the worker, duration of one month and income that is around 500 euros on average. These are the conditions of some of the contracts that Uber Eats has been testing in a first phase of testing.
“Now we are seeing that these guys have to renew contracts and they are being fired because there is no demand. They sold us that they wanted to save us and they have taken us to them. Almost no platform is resorting to direct hiring.”
Jordi Mateo, President APRA
From Uber they point out that it will be from day 12 when they will begin to announce their business model to comply with the Rider Law. But it will be, squarely, an ETT system. The technology company has been contacting its fleets for some time to transfer their data to the different contracts they are managing so that they can contact the associates they already have in their portfolio.
For its part, Deliveroo is the great doubt of the sector. To date, neither party knows how the British company will proceed from the 12th. Without any communication to its riders of any kind, the idea being considered is that they continue with a freelance model. Something that Glovo launched a few hours ago to the surprise of the collective.
Glovo’s surprise and its “Unpublished Model” self-employed system
Glovo had been sending announcements every two or three weeks to their own riders. They asked for time and patience while creating a new model and changing its entire structure. The ETTs were one of the most viable options, but the reality is that the Spanish unicorn has opted for something completely different in its interpretation of the Rider Law. They’ve been on the table, but they discard them for this first phase integration.
The company announced a few hours ago that would hire 2,000 riders internally before 2022. The rest, almost 80%, would remain under a self-employed regime under a new model. There are not too many details about it, but the company sums up to Hypertextual It will be a system in which the entrances and exits will be free, the riders will be able to establish their own prices and will not have any control of the platform beyond the management of the service. From the 12th they will give more details of what they consider “a fairer transition.”
Simultaneously, Glovo announced this to its own riders. In this statement they are asked to choose one of the available options: either the unpublished model or the employment option. Now it is expected what effect one or the other has on the company.
Is Glovo’s freelance option viable under the Rider Act?
The first surprised were the riders themselves, who are still analyzing the situation. Platforms like Riders x Rights have already raised a cry. And the competition is waiting for something they did not expect. Precisely for this reason, Glovo does not want to give more details of its model until the 12th.
In any case, from Glovo they point out that this new autonomous model “follows the criteria established by the Supreme Court and the Court of Justice of the European Union.” According to the unicorn, this conforms to current regulations but adapts to the needs of the riders: For the platform, the Rider Law speaks of the presumption of labor in the sector, but what establishes the status of self-employed or not is the status of the workers. As long as there is no algorithm through and internal management of the platform to its self-employed employees.
It will be these last two points that Glovo brings out in its new model, which is waiting to see what repercussions it will have on the sector. And it is that the little concretion of the Rider Law appears as its greatest enemy: the legal loopholes that have been left along the way, a point quite pointed out by the labor sector that certifies the measure as insufficient, will be the one to talk about from now on. Because the interpretations can be endless.