By Maudie Derks, CEO, Acture Groep
In light of the recent adoption of the Platform work directive everybody is curious about the actions that will be taken and the way this will work out in Europe and the different countries.
We all agree that legislation forces people to act, and as long as national legislation is not in place a lot will stay the same.
The big question is: how can we actually create a movement to realise access to social protection schemes for all, regardless of their contract?
We have been thinking to approach the issue at hand from a completely different angle, opening up the possibility to create movement, without having to wait for additional legislation to be put in place.
Let me take you to a totally different landscape within Europe: the Green Deal. The Green Deal is about sustainability, biodiversity, toxic free environments, efficient buildings and so on. What does this have to do with platform work?
Well, an interesting side effect of the Green Deal is the so-called Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). The point of this Directive is that it obliges big companies (> 250 employees, > EUR 40 million revenue, >20 million balance sheet) to add a paragraph to their annual report on ESG. Companies will need to explain how they act on Environment, Social and Governance issues. In addition, this will need to be audited by an external auditor.
The social paragraph of the ESG reporting states that this should also mean you have to pay attention to “workers in the chain”. Now, everybody might think of forced child labour in India or Pakistan, but there is no explicit mention of this. “Workers in the chain” are people you work with that don’t have a contract with you. This can just as well be the freelancer you hire in the Netherlands or in Spain, or whatever other country in Europe. And if this is the case, then, from this Directive’s perspective, you should explicitly phrase your policy on, for instance, the access to social protection for your workers.
If we think it through, we can imagine that this Directive, far more than the Platform directive, will create a movement on social protection for platform workers because of its link to ESG responsibilities that need to be evaluated by the external auditor.
Large companies cannot shy away from taking measures — the time is ripe for companies to take a step forward and put colour on the cheeks of the “S” in ESG responsibilities.
* The blog is published a part of the Reshaping Work efforts to stimalute timely debate. The opinions and views expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of Reshaping Work.