Spain requiring food delivery drivers to be classified as employees

Food delivery companies operating in Spain will have to reclassify their drivers as employees within three months under a new law passed by decree this week.

Delivery drivers in the country will be guaranteed sick leave and paid vacation time and will no longer have to pay social security contributions themselves.

The “Rider Law” follows a Spanish Supreme Court decision in favor of a former worker at the platform Glovo in September.

The legislation clarifies that ruling to make clear that the tens of thousands of food delivery drivers in Spain should be salaried employees. It does not extend that classification to other gig economy workers, like rideshare drivers, but could set precedent for future rulemaking.

The law also requires all platforms in Spain to inform workers about how the algorithms and artificial intelligence that determine their hiring and firing work.

The Rider Law is a first in Europe and comes as the European Union and the United States are both considering rules that could govern the gig economy.

“The regulation approved today … places us at the forefront of a technological change that cannot leave labor rights behind,” Spanish Labour Minister Yolanda Diaz said at a press conference Tuesday, according to El Pais.

The legislation was negotiated between the government, Spanish worker unions and industry associations.

Several gig workers saying that they prefer independent contractor status took to the streets in Spain in protest, according to local reports.

APS, a group representing the food delivery platforms Deliveroo, Stuart, Glovo and Uber Eats, warned that the law could hurt the industry that “contributes more than €700 million to Spain’s [gross domestic product] GDP.”

The service Just Eat Takeaway, which has already started hiring some of its Spanish drivers, praised the law as building the “necessary legal security to operate according to two fundamental principles: to guarantee the rights of delivery workers giving them a work contract and to ensure all operators in the sector carry out their activity under the same rules.”