For the first time in France, a delivery platform has been sentenced to criminal proceedings.
The decision concerns Deliveroo, but can it impact other platforms?
For the deliverers, if a step has just been taken, the path still looks long.
On Tuesday, the Paris Criminal Court imposed a fine of 375,000 euros on Deliveroo.
The reason for this sanction: having employed, as self-employed, delivery men who should, according to the prosecution, have been salaried.
This is the maximum amount provided by law.
The court also imposed a suspended twelve-month prison sentence on two former leaders of the platform.
A third executive was found guilty of "complicity in concealed work", and fined 10,000 euros and 4 months in prison suspended.
Deliveroo will also have to pay 50,000 euros in damages to each of the five trade unions in their capacity as civil parties during the trial, list Valérie Duez-Ruff, lawyer at the bars of Paris and Madrid.
Will the condemnation of this company mark a new era for delivery platforms, and the beginning of the end of uberization?
Pedaling in semolina
Put away your ideals of a better world, the matter is far from settled.
"This decision concerns a particular company for a specific mode of organization for a given period", nuance from the outset David van der Vlist, lawyer specializing in labor law, tempering our revolutionary ardor.
Same observation with Grégoire Leclerq, co-founder of the Observatory of Uberization: “The incriminated facts go back between 2015 and 2017, that is to say between five and seven years, an eternity on the scale of the platforms.
The situation is no longer the same for Deliveroo today.
“The decision would therefore be important but too anachronistic to move the lines: “It is a strong symbol, but fundamentally, it will not change things”, continues the expert.
Especially in terms of symbols on uberization, Tuesday provided a second, this time more bitter.
On the same day, therefore, Just Eat announced the probable dismissal of 269 delivery workers on permanent contracts in 20 cities, i.e. a third of its salaried couriers in France.
In January 2021, Just Eat wanted to move the lines by announcing its desire to recruit 4,500 delivery people on a permanent contract.
Less than a year and a half later, the acknowledgment of failure is essential: “This shows that we have still not found the economic and social model corresponding to this type of activity.
The “all salaried” does not work”, notes the co-founder of the Observatory.
A first step and a precedent
The revolution of uberization will therefore wait.
Not that the court's decision is anecdotal, far from it.
This is the first time that a platform has been convicted in criminal proceedings, creating "a precedent", according to Valérie Duez-Ruff.
For the lawyer, the other platforms “will have to take measures to react to this decision by ensuring that the use of self-employed workers does not correspond to the characteristic elements of employment, such as the relationship of subordination.
»
The first legal convictions against delivery platforms in France date from November 2018, when the Court of Cassation recognized a relationship of subordination between Take Eat Easy and a courier.
Other stops have since fallen for other platforms, including Uber and – already – Deliveroo.
“The actions will multiply”
But Tuesday's decision, not a judgment but a criminal one, we repeat, changes a lot of things, says David van der Vlist.
A quick lesson in law: “Not only does Deliveroo have to compensate the employees concerned, as with a stoppage, but the company also pays a heavy fine, adding additional costs.
The interest of the penal is that one can directly seek the leaders and condemn them in a personal capacity, creating another level of threat.
It is therefore a significant and dissuasive decision.
»
Valérie Duez-Ruff goes even further: not only do the platforms now have objective reasons to worry, but the court's decision could also inspire delivery people.
If this lawsuit is therefore not in itself a
game-changer
, it calls for others, according to the specialist: "All those whose status as self-employed worker seems to them to be a 'fictional legal dressing', to use the terms of the judgment, can decide to assert their rights through this decision.
Many delivery people had not dared to file a civil action for fear of seeing their account terminated and no longer being able to work.
It is therefore to bet that the actions will multiply.
Towards a better tomorrow?
And the lawyer does not stop there: "The delivery people will be able to seize the civil jurisdiction, namely the Labor Court, to request the requalification of the contractual relations as employees, with all the sums relating thereto, and in particular the reimbursement of charges they had to pay as a self-employed worker”.
No revolution, again and again, but maybe a few seeds planted here and there.
Kamel, Uber Eat deliveryman, confides his feelings to
20 Minutes
: “It is not a scoop that we are treated like shit.
That justice begins to help us, it is good.
But given the consideration of people, society and platforms for us, we know that there is still a long way to go.
It's a job where you quickly lose hope in the future, and it will take more than 375,000 euros in fines to convince me that you will finally be considered.
»
Company
Deliveroo: The platform fined 375,000 euros for "hidden work"
Economy
Deliveroo trial: Maximum fine and suspended prison sentence required for a “system” of concealed work
Economy
Delivery
Deliveroo
Uber
Delivery man
Justice