Gig workers face triangular labor relations
The so-called “gig economy” remains particularly limited in Greece. This flexible form of labor, allowing a worker to be employed by one company so that they work for another, developed in Western Europe in the late 20th century and started spreading in the early 21st century.
Its aim was – at least at first – to cover the temporary and extraordinary needs of enterprises at a significantly reduced cost, but in Greece it did not take off at all, with the rate of “gig workers” amounting to about 0.5% of all employees.
A recent discussion that came about on the nature of labor relationships between employers and delivery workers in the gig economy – after news of efood’s decision to force dozens of employees to turn freelance – sounds familiar when one remembers the long and arduous discussion within the European Union before adopting the 2008 Directive on the equality of conventional and outsourced employees.
Still, scientists point out that while most EU countries have enforced the equal pay and employment terms for both sets of workers, there remain clear signs that this equality can be or is being violated, through other forms of labor.
The number of staff being hired from temp agency – “gig workers” – is constantly growing abroad; however, the constant expansion of the period a company may make use of the services of those outsourced employees and the continuous renewals of the same contracts may conceal the permanent needs of an enterprise without offering workers the benefits of permanent employment.
In Greece an estimated 20,000 temporary employees have signed contracts with one of at least 13 temping agencies that have been active in the country, some of them for quite some time. They tend to be mostly employed in sectors such as food service, administration, call centers, sales and unskilled labor. This is a triangular labor relationship: Companies hire workers which they then outsource to enterprises.
The special legal framework for the professional outsourcing of workers emerged in 2001 with Law 2958; amendments followed, both concerning the essence of outsourcing workers and the conditions for the creation of temporary employment companies.
