“What happened to e-food has nothing to do with the law we passed (the Labor Protection Act) which further protects employees on collaborative platforms, including those of e-food,” Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Kostis Hatzidakis said speaking today in television and radio interviews. He stressed that Greece had a framework under SYRIZA for the platforms, which was strengthened by Law 4808/2021 for the benefit of employees. He added that the opposition’s claims that the new labor law was to blame for what had happened were fraudulent for voting reasons.

According to Mr. Hatzidakis, “there was legislation – even under Tsipras – that allowed you either to be employed in these jobs or to be a freelancer. We have not changed that. This is the case all over Europe, with the exception of Spain. There are employees who want to be employed in these companies, for their own reasons, and others who want to be freelancers, also for their own reasons. I have met them and they have explained this to me.

We brought a regulation with the labor law, which strengthens their rights. In other words, we gave the free associates the right to unionize. In addition, we forced the companies to cover them in terms of health and safety and to give them their protective equipment. All three of these provisions did not exist before.

We also clarified for the first time the distinction between the two categories (of employee and freelancer) so that there are no abuses by the employer. In particular, what a freelancer is is really secured and in this way the employees are protected from unfair practices of companies that may want to “baptize” some as freelancers, when in fact they are employees “.

Who are considered partners?

Mr. Hatzidakis explains based on the new law who are considered collaborators/partners.

“We provided by law that in order for an employee on a platform to be considered to be in the status of a partner and not an employee, four cumulative conditions must apply to him:

• To be able to assign the work undertaken to third parties, because e.g. he can not perform that day.
• To have the right to choose which deliveries assigned to him to perform and which not.
• Be able to provide services on a competitive platform.
• And to be able to connect and disconnect from the platform whenever he wants.

“They are considered partners. The rest are employees. Any other practice is against the law “, stressed Mr. Hatzidakis who accused the opposition that “it tried to take advantage of the noise made for the specific digital platform to claim that it is not the fault of the company and its unfair practices, but the law of the goverment”.

More rights

“Attempts are also being made to convey the image that workers have no rights because their government is supposedly taking them away, while the exact opposite is true. Employees from June onwards with the new law have more rights. An employee can no longer be called a freelancer. Because there are all the tools at the disposal of the employees in the law so that they can be protected.

All this demagoguery is obviously done for voting reasons. They are not interested in employees. In fact, if these lies are to be believed, employees will not seek the law to learn about their rights. It is still a political theatrical performance of SYRIZA and Mr. Tsipras personally “, concluded the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs.

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