The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is planning to issue a landmark policy that will determine if riders of food delivery apps can be considered as employees.
Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III issued the statement after he ordered Labor Undersecretary Ana C. Dione to investigate Foodpanda for allegedly committing unfair labor practices.
This after the food delivery app was reported to have slapped a 10-year suspension against some of its riders who raised questions about its payment scheme.
Initially around 100 riders had their Foodpanda accounts suspended after they held a protest in Davao City last week, but the number has been reduced to 43, according to reports.
Test
To recall, DOLE had already looked into the labor practice of the popular food delivery app last year after some lawmakers accused Foodpanda of shortchanging its riders.
Bello said the agency hopes to finally address the issue by coming out with new guidelines to determine if an employer-employee relationship exists between the riders and Foodpanda.
“We are waiting for the result of that inspection and as soon as we get it, we will come up with the issuance [on this].”
The labor chief said among the factors they will consider in assessing if such a relationship exists is to determine who hires, pays, control the working condition, and has the power to end the employment of the riders.
“This is a very good occasion to come up with an advisory in order to guide the employees and the employers on this issue.”
Trend
The unclear employment status of riders and drivers of app-based services has become a contentious issue in other parts of the world and has even resulted in landmark court decisions.
Labor groups insist that the riders and drivers should be considered as employees of app-based services.
However, executives of the apps disagree, saying they merely link the riders and drivers to their potential clients.
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom recognized drivers of the ride hailing app, Uber, as workers instead of third-party service contractors earlier this year.
The state of California in the United States also made a similar declaration, when its appeals court affirmed that Uber and Lyft must classify their drivers as employees rather than independent contractors in 2020.
Labor coalition Nagkaisa earlier said these developments could result in better working conditions for riders and drivers of app-based services.
Rights of freelancers
The plight of riders of a food delivery service is a “labor dispute waiting to happen” that could be put to an end when rights of freelance workers are recognized under the law, according to Senator Joel Villanueva.
Villanueva, chair of the Senate labor committee, called on his colleagues to support the Freelancer Protection Act which he endorsed for plenary deliberations in September last year. With the Covid-19 pandemic altering the business landscape and displacing millions of workers, some have turned to freelancing to make ends meet and provide for their families, he said.
“In its current form, the Labor Code does not recognize the existence of freelance workers. If there are indeed 1.5 million freelancers, and if we factor in their families, this means there are more than six million Filipinos affected by our action or inaction on this matter, that’s why I’m appealing to our colleagues to see the urgency of this bill,” he said.
“We will continue to pursue the Freelance Workers Protection Bill because it levels the playing field for both workers and employers. The rights of workers under freelancing arrangements are more pronounced in the bill, while allowing employers to resort to freelancing in the meantime while they are trying to get their businesses back in the black.”
The senator said he would bring this again to the attention of the DOLE which earlier committed to look into the matter during the budget deliberations last year. At that time, Foodpanda riders staged a protest at the DOLE office to complain about the unclear payment structure.
In September last year, Villanueva endorsed for plenary deliberations the Freelance Workers Protection bill or Senate Bill No. 1810 which seeks to define and recognize workers under freelance arrangement. In 2018, the Global Freelance Insights Report by Paypal pegged the number of freelance workers in the country to be around 1.5 million, the lawmaker cited.
The bill requires the hiring party and the freelance worker to enter into a written contract or “a document, whether electronic file or printed copy, reflecting the mutual consent of the parties to be bound by the terms and conditions of their freelance work engagement and the consideration for the services rendered by the freelancer.”
The measure also institutes rights of freelance workers, including their rights to redress of grievances, including alternative dispute resolution processes, Villanueva said. Likewise, DOLE is mandated to conduct seminars on the legal recourse available to freelance workers in case of disputes.