An interesting situation regarding Platform employees is currently in Portugal. On May 1, 2023, Portugal added provisions to the Labor Code and established a legal presumption of employment on Platforms, based on six criteria. Importantly, only two conditions need to be met for there to be a presumption of employment. Based on these provisions, the Portuguese Labor Inspectorate has already brought over 800 cases against Platforms to labor courts. The first judgment was issued on February 1, 2024. It is important that in Portuguese law each case must be considered separately (just like in Poland). For now, the verdicts are different: sometimes the Platform wins, sometimes a person working for the Platform wins. All these judgments are appealed to higher courts. And the first appeal has already been considered: the court recognized the employment. The court emphasized that several facts support this. Firstly, the application itself is a work tool necessary to conduct work and it belongs to the Platform. The platform also sets minimum and maximum remuneration rates, controls and supervises work performance, and checks the quality of work performed. Therefore, there is no question of running a business here.
And we would like to draw your attention: more than a year has passed since the introduction of the new law, and the state apparatus still cannot cope with the Platforms. So for us it’s just another year of exploitation.
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