Middlemen: The Croatian ‘Aggregators’ Failing Digital Platform Workers, 24 March 2023

... From food delivery to home cleaning, ride hailing to marketing, tens of millions of so-called ‘platform workers’ around the world earn money via digital platforms that connect buyers and sellers of goods and services.

Reportedly, in Croatia, an estimated 80 per cent of such workers choose to be employed by an aggregator, while the rest register as self-employed. Platform workers and labour unions say labour violations are rife, with many aggregators opting to pay workers partly in cash and thus lowering the level of social security contributions and taxes; workers invariably work longer than the hours stipulated in their contracts.

Meanwhile, digital giants like Spanish Glovo or San Francisco-based ride-hail app Uber are free from many of the responsibilities that come with formal employment.

“Aggregators do the dirty part of the job so the platforms don’t have to,” said Ivan [not his real name], who drives for Uber and Tallinn-based Bolt. “Uber doesn’t care if the social security contributions aren’t paid or if the worker doesn’t have the right to a paid vacation.”...

The European Union estimates that some 28 million people in the bloc work via digital labour platforms, a number that is expected to rise to 43 million by 2025.

In Croatia, which joined the EU in 2013, there are an estimated 194,000 platform workers, out of a workforce of roughly 1.7 million. A big majority are employed by aggregators, which charge fees ranging between five and 10 per cent of a person’s earnings, according to adverts posted online. Some workers complain of even higher rates...

The Croatian branches of Glovo and Wolt, another major food delivery platform, responded jointly via a public relations agent, saying that it is in the interests of digital platforms “to work together with trusted partners, be they restaurants, shops or aggregators”.

Platforms usually check the aggregators before they sign contracts with them, including whether they have debts to the tax authorities or their employees.

“Likewise, when working with a partner, if they [digital platforms] receive information that the partner company is not paying deliverers… or that the [company] is engaging in any illegal conduct, and if it is established that this information is correct, they terminate the cooperation,” Glovo and Wolt said.

Both firms welcomed the new Croatian labour law, with the exception of a provision requiring platforms to conduct monthly monitoring of the aggregators they work with...