The head of German Trade Union Confederation, Reiner Hoffmann, has called for legal protection of self-employed persons who work for online intermediaries such as Uber. Companies that only see mselves as intermediaries between customer and service provider would have to recognise ir responsibility as employers, said Hoffmann of Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung.
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The DGB boss refore calls for tariff commitment to be furred to se companies. People in so-called platform economy also needed breaks and would have to be socially secure. “It cannot be that eight-hour day is dissolved and re are no eleven-hour rest periods.” It would be a “digital proletariat” if rules for digital capitalism were not furr developed. Then “modern slavery” threatens.
Workers ‘ rights, such as maximum work and necessary rest periods, are regulated in Germany in Working Time Act. It applies only to employees. However, in order to work for a platform company like Uber, interested parties have to make mselves independent. The company only arranges orders. This means that drivers do not have right to leave or to pay compensation in case of illness, as y are not employed by Uber.
Companies working according to this model argue that it makes people more flexible: y could decide for whom and how much y work. The activity can also be interrupted at any time if anor possibility arises.
Two million self-employed in platform economy
The DGB estimates that more than two million people in Germany are working in platform economy. According to Hoffmann, up to one million of m are registered as so-called crowd workers, whose services can be bought online: construction of a website or checking of a data set. Also platforms like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk fall under it. There, people can take over Kleinstaufgaben, computers are difficult to deal with, but humans can be done very quickly, for example to mark a particular object on an image. The completion of tasks takes only a few seconds and is paid with a few cents. People worldwide compete with each or on platform.
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“If re is a resolution of place, space, and time when work can be done through Internet platforms worldwide, n we need at least European rules to limit development of mistakes,” Hoffmann said. The EU Commission is working on proposals that need to be implemented quickly.
