"Uber Eats must put three Belgian meal deliverers on its payroll," 4 May 2024

Three self-employed delivery drivers in our country deliver meals for the American platform Uber Eats must be reclassified as employees. The Commission for Regulation of the Employment Relationship (the CAR...) recently decided this.

The platform... requires its delivery personnel to register as self-employed persons. These can be used more flexibly... But it also means that the income of the meal deliverers, who are paid per delivery, is uncertain, and no social rights such as holidays and pension are accrued.

The delivery drivers... therefore asked the committee whether such an obligation was in line with the new legal framework for platform workers. This was established by the federal government in 2022 with its labor deal and has been in force since the beginning of last year.

With this new framework... the presumption of employment is now taken as the starting point. This means that digital platforms such as Uber Eats or Deliveroo must be able to prove that the couriers are not employees.

According to the CAR, ...the Uber Eats couriers do not have the freedom of a self-employed person and... there is in fact an employment contract as an employee. And so Uber Eats must also grant them the rights of an employee, such as a minimum wage and insurance.

Uber Eats announced on Friday that it would challenge the decision in the labor court.