The decide summons to declare the pinnacle of Glovo as being investigated for against the law in opposition to staff’ rights | Economy | EUROtoday

The Barcelona decide investigating Glovo’s labor mannequin, based mostly on false self-employed staff, has summoned the platform’s co-founder and CEO, Oscar Pierre, to testify as being investigated for against the law in opposition to staff’ rights, as confirmed by authorized sources. to EL PAÍS. The listening to will happen on December 3, though it was initially scheduled for final September, though it was postponed to the date now indicated.

Pierre’s accusation stems from the criticism that the Barcelona Provincial Prosecutor’s Office filed on June 13 in opposition to the particular person accountable for the supply firm for finishing up “a practice that is not authorized by labor legislation and that undermines and suppresses the rights that “that recognizes employed workers.” In May 2021, the Government approved what is known as the riders —which came into force in August of that year— which established the status of home delivery workers as employees. A year earlier, the Supreme Court established that these workers must have contracts as employees, thus prohibiting false self-employed workers.

Because Glovo would have continued with this model, the Labor and Social Security Inspection has imposed million-dollar fines. As recognized in the latest semi-annual report made public, Delivery Hero, the German company that acquired the Catalan startup on New Year’s Eve 2021 for nearly 1,000 million euros, the company faces potential fines in the amount of 950 million euros (up to 550 million for the sanctions and another 400 for the investigation opened by the European Commission).

In this context, the Ministry of Labor prepared a report detailing hundreds of specific cases of Glovo delivery drivers who remained self-employed, which it sent in October 2023 to the State Attorney General’s Office. The public ministry transferred him to the Health and Safety Unit for work in case the reported events could constitute a crime, which ended up in the hands of Barcelona prosecutors. After months of analysis, the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office ended up criminally prosecuting the matter, by filing a complaint with the Catalan courts and directly pointing out Pierre as responsible for a crime against the workers. The complaint fell on the Investigative Court number 31 of Barcelona, ​​directed by Judge María Isabel Hernando Vallejo.

Delivery Hero keeps Pierre in his position despite the start of this investigation. The CEO of the company, when being investigated, may be accompanied by his lawyer and will have the right to refuse to testify or answer any questions he considers pertinent, even only those of his defense, unlike witnesses.

“To carry out the services,” the Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office states in its criticism, “Glovo uses workers who are required to be registered in the special regime for self-employed workers of Social Security. [el de autónomos]establishing with them a seemingly commercial relationship that allows them to reduce their business costs, by not guaranteeing a professional salary in accordance with the work day performed, and by being able to stop paying into Social Security the amounts corresponding to the labor contributions of such people”.

The document adds that the platform maintains said relationship of workers even after January 12, 2023, when the Penal Code was modified and prison sentences of six months to six years and fines of six to 12 months were introduced for those who promote the false self-employed. For the Prosecutor’s Office, it is “indisputable” that Glovo workers discover themselves on this state of affairs, because it has been declared by a number of judicial our bodies, whereas emphasizing that the supply staff “continue to be forced to register as self-employed and pay their own taxes.” contributions in the event that they wish to proceed offering providers for the corporate, which constitutes a apply that’s not licensed by labor laws and that undermines and suppresses the rights that it acknowledges to employed staff, resembling these associated to wage, hours, breaks, permits, holidays or Social Security safety.”