The employment status of food delivery riders in Europe and the UK: Self-employed or worker?
| Published date | 01 February 2022 |
| Date | 01 February 2022 |
| Author | Delphine Defossez |
| DOI | 10.1177/1023263X211051833 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
The employment status of food
delivery riders in Europe and the
UK: Self-employed or worker?
Delphine Defossez
Abstract
Online platforms are revolutionizing our daily lives in an attempt to make it easier by offering
innovative services. They also have introduced radical new business models which provide a
new type of flexible working, facilitating employment. While platforms are revolutionary vehicles,
they also denied workers status, resulting in food delivery riders facing precarious working con-
ditions. The current regulatory framework is underdeveloped and unable to guarantee basic social
rights to platform workers, except for Spain. At the same time, delivery workers are fighting to get
some form of recognition and protection. Consequently, courts have been increasingly requested
to determine the riders’legal status. However, courts are struggling in characterizing those
employment relationships resulting in disparities. For instance, the Cour de Cassation in France
has established that an employer-employee relationship existed while the UK High Court denied
worker status to Deliveroo riders. This lack of harmonization and different rulings could result in
the application of EU rules in some countries but not others. It might, therefore, be time for the
EU to start recognizing and regulating these jobs to offer better worker protections.
Keywords
Labour law, food delivery workers, self-employed, workers, national judgments, Yodel,deficiencies
in the EU system
1. Introduction
Online platforms are revolutionizing our daily lives in an attempt to make it easier by offering
innovative services. This revolution came at the cost of increased pressures on the existing regula-
tory framework. It soon became clear that the current regulatory framework is unable to guarantee
Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Corresponding author:
Delphine Defossez, Law School, Northumbria University, City Campus East, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST, UK.
Email: delphine.defossez@northumbria.ac.uk
Article
Maastricht Journal of European and
Comparative Law
2022, Vol. 29(1) 25–46
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1023263X211051833
maastrichtjournal.sagepub.com
basic social rights to platform workers, except for Spain.
1
For obvious reasons, delivery platforms
have tried to deny any employment relationship.
The heavy reliance on self-employment status brings obvious risks due to the inadequacy of the
current legal framework. Indeed, most worker protections, such as minimum wages and social
insurance, are directly linked to the employment relationship. Food delivery riders
2
often struggle
with unregulated working conditions while being obliged to comply with the technology platforms’
terms of use and increasing competition that these companies bring. This struggle results in precar-
ious conditions for solo self-employed (i.e. self-employed without employees) who are highly
dependent on the platforms.
3
The high dependency on platforms means that such platforms hold
excessive power, leading to social dumping. At the same time, delivery workers are fighting to
get some form of recognition and protection. Consequently, courts have been increasingly
requested to determine the riders’legal status. However, courts are struggling in characterizing
those employment relationships resulting in disparities. For instance, the Cour de Cassation in
France has established that an employer-employee relationship existed while the UK High Court
denied worker status to Deliveroo riders.
4
To complicate an already complex situation even more, some courts have differentiated Uber
drivers from delivery riders on the simple argument that Uber drivers cannot outsource their
work. While this is undeniable, such differentiation does not take into consideration the fact that
Uber Eats is based on the Uber model, meaning that the terms and conditions are pretty similar.
This differentiation could partially be explained by the great misconceptions regarding the platform
economy, which slows any adaption of the existing laws.
The COVID pandemic has highlighted the importance of the service provided by those food
delivery workers. In many countries, they have allowed restaurants to continue working during
lockdowns. Although they provided valuable services, the status and remunerations of the food
delivery workers have not changed. It might, therefore, be time for the EU to start recognizing
and regulating these jobs to offer better worker protections. This is especially true as the diver-
gences in rulings are endangering the existing harmonization. This paper will, therefore, evaluate
the consequences of the divergence of judgments at the national level and the laissez-faire at the
EU level and will argue that riders should be granted some form of employment benefits as consid-
ering riders as full employees will hinder the flexibility that defines platform work. Section 3 ana-
lyses the divergent judgements at the national level whereas section 4 is dedicated to analysing the
decisions in the UK. Section 5 evaluates the European regulatory response and highlights its
1. V. De Stefano and A. Aloisi, ‘Fundamental Labour Rights, Platform Work and Human-Rights Protection of
Non-Standard Workers’in J. Bellace and B. Ter Haar (eds.), Labour, Business and Human Rights Law (Edward
Elgar Publishing, 2019); J. Berg, M. Aleksynska, V. De Stefano and M. Humblet, ‘Non-standard Employment
Around the World: Regulatory Answers to Face Its Challenges’, 100 Bulletin of Comparative Industrial Relations
(2018), p. XX.
2. The term ‘rider’has been used to give a ‘neutral’tone to the discussion. It is used interchangeably with the term ‘worker’.
3. M.C. Urzì Brancati, A. Pesole and E. Férnandéz-Macías, New Evidence on Platform Workers in Europe JRC118570
(EU, 2020); Z. Kilhoffer et al., Study to Gather Evidence on the Working Conditions of Platform Workers, Final
report VT/2018/032 (2020), www.ceps.eu/ceps-publications/study-to-gather-evidence-on-the-working-conditions-of-
platform-workers/; J. Prassl, Humans as a Service: The Promise and Perils of Work in the Gig Economy (Oxford
University Press, 2018).
4. Ruling no. 374 of March 4, 2020 –Appeal no. 19-13.316; Independent Workers Union of Great Britain v. RooFoods Ltd
(t/a Deliveroo) TUR1/985(2016).
26 Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 29(1)
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