A Court in Bologna, Italy, ruled in favour of platform workers, declaring that Deliveroo’s decision to apply a National Collective Agreement (NCA) - signed in September 2020 between the trade union UGL RIDER and the business association Assodelivery - constitutes ‘anti-union behaviour’ as per Article 28 of the ‘Workers Statute’ (Statuto dei Lavoratori).
In its reasoning, the Court declared that UGL was lacking the necessary ‘requisites of representativeness’ and that therefore the NCA itself was illegitimate. By classifying workers as fully autonomous, the agreement itself provided inferior standards compared to the sectoral NCA of the logistics and goods sector, and Deliveroo, by relying on the agreement signed by UGL, was preventing workers from accessing adequate working conditions.
This ruling has ensured that workers can benefit from the higher standards of the sectoral NCA without fear of dismissal, and that any previous dismissals based on a refusal to sign UGL’s agreement are to be considered discriminatory and thus void.
For more information, see the press release of the appellant trade union, Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (CGIL).