The Spanish government claims 110 million euros from Uber Eats for using false self-employed workers

BarcelonaThe Spanish government is claiming 110 million euros from Uber Eats for having employed 60,000 delivery drivers as false self-employed workers between the years 20022 and 2026, as reported by El País and confirmed to ARA by sources from the Ministry of Labor. Inspection, which depends on the portfolio led by Yolanda Díaz, initiated an investigation last summer and concluded that these workers should be salaried. The 110 million euros now requested from the delivery company are for unpaid contributions, and an administrative fine for the use of self-employed workers will be added to this amount, the figure of which is yet to be determined.

In statements collected by El País, a spokesperson for Uber Eats assures that the company is committed to the legality of its hiring: “We reaffirm our commitment to complying with our obligations and will continue working with delivery drivers, unions, and the [Spanish] government to ensure a fair process for all,” he states. In fact, according to the same newspaper, thousands of workers on the home delivery platform received a message from Social Security on their phones this Thursday informing them of their registration in the general regime during the periods they had worked as self-employed.

All of this, after in January, four years after the approval of the rider law, Uber Eats already announced that it would cease "collaborating with self-employed delivery drivers"

. The company, headquartered in California (USA), then detailed that delivery drivers still using its application as self-employed could continue working as employed workers in one of the fleets subcontracted by the firm. It thus followed in the footsteps of Catalan company Glovo, which

ended up accepting a salaried model just before its founder Oscar Pierre, declared in court as accused of a criminal offense against workers. Just Eat had already been operating with employees for some time.