A Deliveroo delivery man in March 2020 in Paris (AFP/Archives/Philippe LOPEZ)
Deliveroo will soon be set on its fate: the Paris Criminal Court must say on Tuesday whether the platform has employed as independent delivery people who should, according to the prosecution, have been salaried.
In March, after a week of trial – – the first criminal in France of “uberization” – – the prosecution had requested the maximum penalty of 375,000 euros in fine against Deliveroo France, as well as one year suspended prison sentence against two former French managers of the company.
The prosecutor had regretted the absence on the bench of the defendants of the American William Shu, big boss of the British company and “unquestionably” at the origin of the “system” which allowed Deliveroo to benefit from “all the advantages of the employer”, “without the inconvenience”.
Deliveroo is responsible for “an instrumentalization and misuse of labor regulations”, with the aim of organizing a “systemic concealment” of jobs for delivery people who should have been employees and not independent, had hammered Céline Ducournau.
The “fraud” put in place had the sole purpose of employing its deliverers “at a lower cost”, and it does not matter if some are “satisfied” with this status or “feel free”, she had underlined, in reference to the one of Deliveroo’s arguments to justify the status of auto-entrepreneur.
“It is not about the trial of poor working conditions”, nor that of “modes of consumption of our time”, had retorted in defense Antonin Lévy, lawyer for Deliveroo France, for which the trial sometimes took on airs of “political forum”.
– Highly disputed status –
A dozen delivery men on bicycles or scooters, many now committed against the “system”, marched to the bar to tell their arrival at Deliveroo, attracted by the promises of “freedom” and “flexibility” but had discovered the “war to get the best time “slots”, the “pressure”, “surveillance” and reprimands from Deliveroo. In total, more than a hundred are civil parties to the trial.
Deliveroo maintained that it was only “connecting” customers, restaurateurs and deliverers, and denied “any relationship of subordination”.
For the two successive leaders of Deliveroo France over the period concerned, from 2015 to 2017, the prosecutor requested a one-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 30,000 euros. For a third executive, she requested four months of suspended imprisonment and a fine of 10,000 euros.
The prosecutor also wanted as an additional penalty “the display and dissemination” of the court decision, in particular in front of the premises of Deliveroo for two months, as well as on the home page of the site and the mobile application of the platform — a thoughtful sentence for “current workers” on the platform, she said.
The Urssaf claims for its part 9.7 million euros to make up for the social security contributions avoided by the use of independent deliverers.
Highly contested, the independent status of Uber drivers or Deliveroo couriers is called into question in many countries by the courts or, more rarely, by laws which have prompted certain giants in the sector to propose compromises.
© 2022 AFP
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