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January 24, 2020

Employee protection must be applied to riders, so Foodinho, the company that took over Foodora, is wrong, and the five cycle-bellboys of Turin are right to claim employee treatment. So the Cassation closes a story that started two and a half years ago.

The ruling explains how the Jobs act in the original version already guaranteed the classification of that type of work in subordination. Imagine now that ad hoc safeguards have been included in the 'save-companies' decree. "We have gone in the right direction", comments the Minister of Labor, Nunzia Catalfo. "Our law, as established by the Court of Cassation, guarantees all the employee's protections to cycle-bellboys: from holidays to sickness to motherhood", he underlines.

In detail, in the pronunciation it is explained that there is a crossed border which things change. Line that is crossed when the hetero-organization of work "is marked to the point of making the employee comparable to an employee". At this point "equivalent protection is imposed and, therefore, the remedy for the full application of the discipline of subordinate work". And this is what happened, again according to the judges of the last degree, to the five riders in question who crossed the city on the bicycle, equipped with boxes for transporting food, and holding the smartphone to receive orders on deliveries via special digital platform.

The Turin Court of Appeal had already partially recognized this, but now the Cassation goes further, claiming that it is not necessary to refer to a third way, intermediate between autonomy and subordination. Simply when in the ongoing collaboration it is the client who establishes place and time, and there is a 'one to one' relationship, another package of protections is triggered, which is precisely what the employees have.

Since November, regulations have been in force that make the audience of co.co.co even wider to guarantee the treatment of subordination. The decree also provides for all cycle-bellboys to exceed piecework, a pay linked to collective agreements and health and social security protections. For those who bring ready meals on two wheels regularly, in short, for professional riders, the subordinate treatment is valid. So a double track: a core of guarantees that applies to those who perform the service occasionally and the conditions of employment for those who are employed on an ongoing basis. The law also establishes that the INAIL coverage will start from February while the minimum remuneration should be determined by November of this year.

The unions read the ruling as a victory and now ask in chorus to transfer the collective bargaining agreement standards to the sector. "The system of multinational food delivery companies can no longer hide behind the false myth of 'new' work and complete autonomy of performance", urges CGIL. And according to the CISL, "the predicted observer" must be immediately installed at the Ministry of Labor. "

The discontent arises instead from the riders, or rather from their current, to which the subordination is close. "We are self-employed", insists the rider Nicolò Montesi president of the Anar who, he says, now has "500 members".