This new fine brings to 205 million euros the total amount of sanctions imposed in recent months by the Spanish Labor Inspectorate on the platform, owned since last summer by the German group Delivery Hero, the ministry told AFP. .

Most of this new fine of 57 million euros was decided due to irregularities in the hiring of 7,000 couriers in Madrid, employed as self-employed workers when they should have been considered as employees, according to the Labor Inspectorate.

But Glovo was also sanctioned for having made work nearly 800 deliverers of foreign nationality in an irregular situation, therefore without work permits, according to the ministry, engaged for several months in a showdown with the delivery platforms.

"No company big or small should remain outside the law in Spain," said Communist Labor Minister Yolanda Diaz, interviewed by journalists.

"I hope and I wish" that Glovo will now "apply" the law, she insisted.

The government of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez had a reform of the labor code adopted in May 2021 in order to introduce a "presumption of employment" for all couriers using delivery applications such as Uber Eats, Glovo or Deliveroo.

This text, called "Rider's law", led to the hiring of thousands of couriers hitherto considered "independent", but came up against the reluctance of certain platforms, in particular Glovo, accused by its detractors of circumventing the reform.

Contacted by AFP, Glovo assured that the facts of which she was accused by the Labor Inspectorate were "prior to the entry into force" of this text and specified that she was going to file an appeal against the decision of the Work inspection.

"The proposed sanction refers to an operating model that no longer exists in Spain" and "there is no labor inspection report or any kind of judicial decision on the new model currently in force in Spain “, specified the platform.

Following the adoption of the "Rider law", Glovo announced that it was going to pay the delivery people working for its online supermarkets, but that the meal delivery people would remain independent on the basis of a new status supposed to reinforce their autonomy.

The two main Spanish unions, UGT and CCOO, then seized the labor inspectorate.

© 2023 AFP