Crowd-shipping delivery drivers via online platforms are becoming increasingly common in last-mile delivery sector. Unlike zero-hour contract workers, these drivers are classified as independent contractors or freelancers, allowing providers to bypass employment legislation regarding zero-hour contracts.
Platform work
Last-mile providers engaging in these practices use their branded apps to onboard drivers as independent contractors, who then use their own vehicles to deliver packages. Drivers use these apps to select delivery blocks, navigate routes, and manage deliveries, similar to drivers for restaurant delivery services like Uber Eats or Deliveroo. Amazon uses Amazon Flex, DPD uses Stuart, and Evri uses Courier Community. In France, Shopopop is a large crowd shipping platform.
European Commission analysis from 2021 found that more than 500 digital labor platforms are active, and the sector employs more than 28 million people—a figure expected to reach 43 million by 2025. Digital labor platforms are present in various economic sectors, be it “on location”, such as ride-hailing and food delivery drivers, or online with services such as data encoding and translation. While most platform workers are formally self-employed, about 5.5 million people may be wrongly classified as self-employed.
EU proposal: Platform Work Directive
The EU proposes new rules to improve working conditions for gig economy workers through the Platform Work Directive. This directive aims to address the misclassification of platform workers and facilitate their reclassification as employees, ensuring they can access their rights under EU law.
The directive requires EU countries to establish a rebuttable legal presumption of employment at the national level to correct the power imbalance between digital labor platforms and platform workers. If conditions indicating control and direction are present, the law will assume platform workers are employees unless proven otherwise. Workers can claim employee status under the new rules, gaining minimum wage, paid leave, and social security benefits. The burden of proof will be on the platform to demonstrate that workers are genuinely independent contractors.
The new rules ensure that a person performing platform work cannot be fired or dismissed based on a decision taken by an algorithm or an automated decision-making system. Instead, digital labor platforms must ensure human oversight of important decisions directly affecting the persons performing platform work.
MEPs approved the directive in April 2024. After its publication in the Official Journal of the EU, member states will have two years to incorporate its provisions into national legislation.
Implications for Last Mile Providers
Member states will establish a legal presumption of employment, triggered by conditions indicating control and direction, to be defined by national laws and informed by EU case law. Over the next year, this will be introduced into national legislation.
Self-employed drivers using delivery platforms may claim employee status (and related benefits) if conditions are met. European parcel and postal operators must plan for increased last-mile regulation driven by worker welfare, sustainability concerns, and traffic congestion. How last-mile operators will adapt to the evolving regulatory landscape remains to be seen.
Last-mile providers using platform workers will need to review the working conditions of self-employed drivers, assess the relationship between drivers and the platform, and ensure that drivers do not have a subordinate relationship with the platform.