During the plenary session in the European Parliament in Strasbourg (15-18 April 2019), MEPs debate on endorsing minimum rights for workers with on-demand, voucher-based or platform jobs, such as Uber or Deliveroo. Statements by Enrique CALVET CHAMBON (ALDE , ES), rapporteur , Marianne THYSSEN, Member of the EC in charge of Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility,Maria ARENA (S&D, BE), Dennis RADTKE (EPP, DE), Paloma LÓPEZ BERMEJO (GUE/NGL, ES), Jean LAMBERT (Greens/EFA, UK),

Transparent and predictable working conditions in the EU: extracts from the debate and illustrative shots

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SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Enrique CALVET CHAMBON (ALDE , ES), rapporteur , What this directive does is establish let's be clear about this minimum conditions minimum rights for all European workers.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Enrique CALVET CHAMBON (ALDE, ES), rapporteur, What is given is right to information which are much improved on the 1991 directive. These are rights to two probation periods not being abused. And this text gives rights focusing on all the new types of contracts platform work insecure work. All of these workers who have been in limbo had their rights taken away from now on they will have the Court of justice, the European Court of Justice and this directive.

SOUNDBITE (English), Marianne THYSSEN, Member of the EC in charge of Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, We are modernizing European labor law and adjusting it to the new world of work, as you know dear members of parliament, today a growing number of workers and particularly young and female workers are in a-typical forms of employment with often very flexible contracts. This is why we needed to find the right balance.

SOUNDBITE (English), Marianne THYSSEN, Member of the EC in charge of Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, With the new rules in place we will first of all ensure more transparency. All workers in the EU will receive information on key working conditions. Workers will know at the beginning of their employment,this means within the first week what their basic rights and obligations are.

SOUNDBITE (French), Maria ARENA (S&amp;D, BE), And that constitutes progress Madam Commissioner as you yourself said at the same time it is regrettable that member states have excluded from this directive contracts of under 12 hours per month and it is also regrettable that member states failed to agree quite simply on the prohibition of zero hours contracts. So I would tend to say that yes fair enough. Europe has made progress. This is a minimum standards directive we said but I think your report to be more ambitious when it comes to safeguarding workers rights.

SOUNDBITE (German), Dennis RADTKE (EPP, DE), Cutting red tape for companies especially small compromises. That is something that's really working so we can say that we are managing to balance out those interests there. Thirdly for us as a group it was very important as well to make sure that the legal definition of a worker or an employee, the one that's been proposed by the commission has not been included in the text and that this definition will still be produced and defined by the member states a single definition at European level would have led to more legal uncertainty than legal certainty.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Paloma L&#211;PEZ BERMEJO (GUE/NGL, ES), The European Parliament wants to secure working conditions for those who are most vulnerable and the tax will leave most workers to all intents and purposes with no protection. We have security officers, we have people who are on contracts of fewer than 12 hours per month as well as many other workers and all the data shows that they face discriminatory measures and certainly are a threat to this target of minimum standards across the European Union.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jean LAMBERT (Greens/EFA, UK), Of course we can welcome measures such as the increased and better information contract at an earlier point. The compensation for cancelled on demand work, but we do have problems about the definition of worker and the variance within the different member states means that we're undermining certainty there.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jean LAMBERT (Greens/EFA, UK), Council here could have followed the European Parliament. It could have followed the Commission on putting in real strong sound substance to help build social Europe but what Council has given with one hand it's taken away with another.

Event date	16/04/2019
Reference:	I171465V
Format:	16:9 format
Copyright:	© European Union
copyrightYear:	2019

Transparent and predictable working conditions in the EU: extracts from the debate and illustrative shots

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