Bilateral with Miki Kuusi, CEO of Wolt
Ref. Ares(2022)6818671 - 03/10/2022
Ref. Ares(2022)7025147 - 11/10/2022
19 September 2022, 15:00-15:30
Basis CAB SCHMIT/1374
Commissioner Schmit
Jobs and Social Rights
Bilateral with Miki Kuusi, CEO of Wolt
19 September 2022, 15:00 – 15:30
CAB room
Members of Cabinet in charge:
Main contributors:
Ana Carla PEREIRA
Briefing coordination:
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Bilateral with Miki Kuusi, CEO of Wolt
19 September 2022, 15:00-15:30
Basis CAB SCHMIT/1374
Scene-setter
On 19 September you will meet with Mr Miki Kuusi, CEO of Wolt to discuss
the proposal for the
Platform Work Directive and the
draft Guidelines on
the application of EU competition law.
In the letter of 29 August addressed to you and Executive Vice-President
Vestager, Mr Kuusi is requesting the Commission to:
Publish Guidelines unlocking collective bargaining as soon as
possible (
Mr Kuusi expressed serious concerns about the delay in
the publication of the final Guidelines);
Align the Platform Work Directive with the Guidelines for collective
agreements (concretely, treat collective bargaining similarly to
voluntary benefits and protections in Recital 23);
Ensure that solutions to platform work are as uniform as possible
across the EU (Wolt is advocating for EU-level criteria, warning
against national criteria or automatic presumption).
You met with Mr Kuusi on 9/06/21 to discuss the Platform Work initiative. On
17/06/22, Ana Carla Pereira met with Wolt’s couriers. Wolt was present at
the consultation meeting with platforms on 20/09/21. Wolt has been in
principle supportive of the Directive and the Guidelines, as long as the
combination of the two instruments enables collective bargaining for self-
employed and allows platforms to offer better protections of people working
through platforms without the need to reclassify them as workers.
Line to take
[On the Draft Guidelines on the application of EU competition law]
The Commission appreciates and welcomes Wolt’s support.
Self-employed people working through platforms constitute one of the
categories covered by the draft Guidelines. After the publication of the
Guidelines, their collective agreements with the platforms to which they
provide their services fall outside the scope of EU competition law.
The Commission understands the need for a swift adoption of these
Guidelines. We are working in this direction, with the aim to adopt in autumn
2022. Adoption was slightly delayed (initial planning was to adopt on Q2
2022) in order to ensure coordination with other related projects.
The Guidelines will ensure
full alignment with the definition of “digital labour
platform”, a term used and defined in the Proposal for the Platform Work
Directive. DG COMP will ensure that the two initiatives will remain aligned
on this aspect. In particular, if the definition of “digital labour platforms” in the
adopted Platform Work Directive differs materially from the one in the
Guidelines, DG COMP will update the Guidelines accordingly, in order for
the two initiatives to remain aligned.
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Bilateral with Miki Kuusi, CEO of Wolt
19 September 2022, 15:00-15:30
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[On the Platform work Directive]
Digital labour platforms, such as the Finnish company Wolt bring innovation
to the Single Market. Their services are greatly appreciated by consumers
as well as by the people who work through them, be it as a full-time job or as
a secondary activity.
The Commission fully supports the sustainable development of the platform
economy, and recognises the benefits that platform companies such as Wolt
bring. We want to make sure that these benefits are spread equally and
accessed fairly.
Our proposal for a Directive aims to
improve working conditions in
platform work while supporting the conditions for a
sustainable growth of
the EU’s platforms, by workers, consumers and businesses alike.
The Member States will be able to transpose the Directive in a flexible way,
in respect of their labour market traditions. For instance, the Directive allows
for social partners to be entrusted with the transposition.
The key provision of the Directive is the
rebuttable presumption. It is
based on a list of EU criteria that indicate whether a platform is exerting
control over people working through it.
To establish the criteria of control, determining whether the legal
presumption of employment relationship would apply, the Commission has
analysed relevant national and ECJ cases.
Rather than opting for general criteria such as for example “subordination”,
the Commission proposes a list of more specific criteria relevant for platform
work that are operational and that would not require complex legal analysis
from those who would evoke the presumption.
The presumption can be rebutted based on Member States’ national
approaches to labour market policy and definitions of “worker”.
There is no trade-off between employing someone and organising their work
in a flexible manner. We already have many examples of flexible
employment e.g. in the retail and hospitality sectors.
The Commission welcomes platforms’ initiatives to improve the working
conditions of self-employed people working through platforms. This is why
the proposed Directive states that where a platform decides to pay for social
protection or insurance, those benefits should not be regarded as
determining elements indicating an employment relationship.
The proposal is now being discussed by the European Parliament and the
Council. The co-legislators have different views on the presumption and the
criteria. It is still too early to pre-empt what will be the final result.
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Background
[Collective agreements regarding the working conditions of self-employed]
In recent years, there has been a
noticeable increase of self-employed in the EU.
This development has increased the flexibility and accessibility of the labour market,
but has also led to the deterioration of working conditions in the platform economy and
beyond.
Some solo self-employed are in a weak position vis-à-vis certain digital
platforms or professional customers, and have
little influence over their working
conditions.
The European Court of Justice has carved out collective bargaining from the scope of
EU competition law. But this exemption only applies to employees. Self-employed are
in principle considered as
“undertakings” when they sell services on the market. Self-
employed therefore
risk infringing the prohibition against anticompetitive agreements
in Article 101 of the Treaty, if they collectively negotiate their fees and working
conditions.
This risk has created
a chilling effect. In other words, solo self-employed and their
counterparts are discouraged from collectively negotiating.
The aim of the new Guidelines is to remove that chilling effect. No more, no less. This
initiative is not regulating working conditions or changing how social dialogue and
collective bargaining are regulated by Member States.
The evidence collected confirms the initial indications that this problem goes beyond
the platform economy. It
affects both the online and off-line economy. For example,
we have seen that the issue is very present in the artistic or translation services
sectors.
There are two broad categories of self-employed that have difficulties in influencing
their working conditions.
Firstly, solo self-employed who are in a comparable position to workers and thus,
cannot be seen as genuinely independent.
Secondly, solo self-employed who, even if they may not be in a position
“comparable to workers”, are in an unbalanced negotiating position towards
their counterparties.
Against this background, the draft Guidelines apply to all sectors and exclude the
application of competition law to collective agreements of
solo self-employed who are
in a position comparable to workers. These are people who are economically
dependent from their counterparty because they earn their income exclusively or
predominantly from one company; or people who work “side by side” with workers in
the same company doing similar tasks as workers; or finally, people who work through
platforms. We can do this exclusion by relying on a purpose driven interpretation of the
existing case law from the European Court of Justice that explicitly allows false self-
employed to collectively bargain due to their lack of independence.
The draft Guidelines also recognise that
self-employed that are not in a situation
comparable to workers may nevertheless be
in an unbalanced negotiating position.
Such persons may thus need to collectively negotiate their working conditions. The
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Bilateral with Miki Kuusi, CEO of Wolt
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Commission will commit in the Guidelines not to intervene against such collective
agreements.
Finally, collective agreements of solo self-employed, which do not fall into the scope of
the Guidelines do not automatically infringe the EU competition rules. These will be
assessed on a case-by-case basis, under the conditions of Article 101 TFEU as any
other type of agreement.
The Commission launched a public consultation on draft Guidelines on collective
bargaining of self-employed in early December. This public consultation ran until the
second half of February. The Commission received 209 contributions and has adjusted
the proposed text where necessary in light of that input.
Next steps:
DG COMP has made some small amendments to the text following the input of the
public consultation.
The final adoption is expected during early autumn.
[State of play of the platform work proposal]
The Czech Presidency held 2 meetings of the Council Working Party on Social
Questions to discuss the Platform Work proposal. During the last meeting on 5
September the delegations discussed a PRES note on the mechanism and the criteria
of the rebuttable legal presumption, and conducted an article-by-article examination of
Chapters V (remedies and enforcement) and VI (final provisions). Most Member States
generally support the proposal. The rebuttable presumption and the criteria triggering it
remain the main contentious issue – however most Member States agree with the
proposed approach to set criteria at EU rather than national level. The next SQWP
meeting is scheduled for 26 September. The Czech Presidency aims at reaching a
general approach by December.
The EP rapporteur Elisabetta Gualmini (S&D, IT) presented her draft report to the
EMPL committee on 19 May. It suggests a broader employment status presumption
and extending the algorithmic management provisions to all workers who interact with
algorithms in their work environment. Amendments of the other political groups have
been tabled in June, shadow’s meetings started in July. The vote in the EMPL
committee is planned for October and in plenary by the end of the year.
[WOLT’s Position vis-à-vis the Guidelines]
Wolt has actively called for regulation of platform work and supports the ability of self-
employed to organise and collectively bargain in a way that is adapted to independent,
flexible and platform-enabled work. They thus argue that self-employed should be able
to organise and negotiate directly with the platforms.
Swift publication of the Guidelines is paramount in order to put in motion discussion
between platforms and self-employed people working through platforms. Withholding
the Guidelines has frozen these discussions in the absence of the required legal
certainty as to the application of EU competition law in in these instances.
Wolt is in favour of further alignment of the two initiatives (Competition Guidelines with
the Proposal for a Platform Work Directive).
[Wolt’s stance on the EU initiative on platform work]
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Bilateral with Miki Kuusi, CEO of Wolt
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Wolt supports the EU’s effort at bringing legal clarity in the platform economy through
harmonised rules and has often cited the P2B regulation as a best practice.
Wolt is opposed to the reclassification of ride-hailing drivers from self-employed to
workers. However, they have in the past expressed openness to the idea of a third
category status.
In October 2020 the Finnish “Labour Council”, an independent body operating under
the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, and issues statements about
employment protection and regulation issued a statement declaring that platform
workers providing food delivery services, including for Wolt, should be considered
employees of the platform, and not self-employed. The statement is quite recent, and
thus it remains to be seen what effect this will have on the actual working status of
platform workers. Wolt published an opinion indicating that reclassification into worker
status would lead to lower number of jobs, loss of flexibility and lower earnings of the
couriers.
In January 2021, Wolt expanded to Germany and launched a pilot project by which it
employs its German riders. Wolt claims this is possible in Germany thanks to the
flexible labour market rules. The results of the pilot are yet to be disclosed.
Wolt claims that the only type of control exerted over couriers is that of ‘gatekeeping’:
they fix a maximum number of couriers per any given market, beyond which hires are
blocked. Couriers are paid per delivery completed, not per hour worked.
In Denmark, where it has +2000 couriers and has been facing increasing pressure to
classify them as employees, Wolt has been in talks with trade unions (including 3F,
which already struck a deal with household services platform ‘Hilfr’) on the possibility of
entering a collective agreement.
In a meeting with the Commission’s DG EMPL on 29 January 2021, Wolt confirmed it
would participate in the Social Partners’ Consultation via engagement with Business
Europe and national employers’ organisations.
In 2022 Wolt has also published a report on algorithmic transparency.
[Overview of national court rulings concerning Wolt]
In October 2020, the Finnish Labour Council (an independent special authority under
the Finnish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment) issued a legally non-binding
opinion defining food-delivery couriers working for Foodora and Wolt as “employees”,
not independent contractors.
The council stressed that its opinion only applied to couriers who have signed a
contracts as individuals, not through a third party like a temporary work agency.
Wolt factsheet
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Bilateral with Miki Kuusi, CEO of Wolt
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Wolt is a Finnish technology company that operates a restaurant food, grocery, and
retail intermediation and delivery marketplace. It operates in 23 countries (16 of which
are Member States), serving goods from 60,000 merchants with 130,000 courier
partners to 18 million customers.
Wolt was founded in Helsinki, Finland in 2014 by tech start-upper Miki KUUSI,
alongside other partners. Wolt is today active in 160+ cities and 23 countries
worldwide, including 16 EU Member States (CY, CZ, DE, DK, EE, FI, EL, HU, LV, LT,
MT, PL, SK, SI and SE).
Wolt has raised $856 million in funding from investors such as ICONIQ Capital, Tiger
Global, DST, Prosus, KKR, Coatue, 83North, Goldman Sachs, Highland Europe and
EQT Ventures & EQT Growth, among others.
In
November
2021,
it
was
announced
that Wolt
was
being
merged
into
DoorDash through an exchange of shares, giving Wolt shareholders a minority of
shares in DoorDash for a deal worth
US$8.1 billion. In June 2022, DoorDash
completed the takeover.
CV of Mr Miki KUUSI
Mikko “Miki” KUUSI (born September 25, 1989 in
Helsinki) is a Finnish startup entrepreneur. Since
2014, he has been the CEO of the technology
company Wolt, which he co-founded.
Mr KUUSI is known as one of the founders of the
growth business event series “Slush”. He served as
the first CEO of the event series from 2011 to 2015,
when he switched entirely to Wolt.
Mr KUUSI previously worked for the gaming company
Supercell as a business analyst. He studied finance at
the Aalto University School of Economics.
In September 2015, he was 32nd in Wired’s list of
Europe's 100 Most Influential Technology Influencers.
He was also named one of Forbes' 30 most significant
consumer technology players under the age of 30 in
January 2016.
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