Fairwork Spain. Ratings 2025: insufficient progress in protecting work on digital platforms
The platform economy is firmly established in Spain, although it is currently undergoing significant transformations. Its presence is not limited to the most well-known sectors, such as food delivery or ride-hailing. Platforms such as Livo (hospital nursing) and Cuideo (care for dependent persons) i...
| Autores: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | informe técnico |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2025 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) |
| Repositorio: | Docta Complutense |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/132579 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/132579 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Economía de plataforma Plataformas digitales de trabajo Capitalismo de plataformas Gestión algorítmica Condiciones de trabajo Calidad del empleo Platform economy Digital labour platforms Working conditions Sociología Economía Ciencias Sociales 63 Sociología 6306 Sociología del Trabajo 5306.02 Innovación Tecnológica |
| Sumario: | The platform economy is firmly established in Spain, although it is currently undergoing significant transformations. Its presence is not limited to the most well-known sectors, such as food delivery or ride-hailing. Platforms such as Livo (hospital nursing) and Cuideo (care for dependent persons) illustrate this diversification, demonstrating that the platformisation of work extends beyond male-dominated, low-skilled, or consumer-oriented sectors. One of the most significant developments in the Spanish context has been Glovo’s abandonment of the self-employment model and its transition — completed in July 2025 — to an employment-based model (not assessed in this report). This shift represents a victory for policies aimed at recognising the employee status of workers in the delivery sector, in line with Spanish legislation (the Rider Law or Ley Rider in Spanish) and the EU Directive on Platform Work. For the first time, most platform-based delivery activity in Spain operates under an employment-based model. Apart from Uber Eats, which continues to rely on self-employed workers at the time of writing in October 2025, the sector has undergone a significant process of regularisation, producing positive effects for worker protection. The recognition of employee status has led to tangible progress, such as the establishment of Glovo’s first works council for delivery workers, and has consolidated processes already initiated in platforms such as Just Eat, which has long-standing representative bodies and a collective agreement, signed in 2021 and renewed in 2025. However, this process of recognising employee status has limitations. Glovo, for instance, has not directly incorporated its entire former workforce, instead relying on outsourcing through delivery fleets. This practice often entails poorer working conditions, including lower wages, less favourable collective agreements, weaker union presence, and so forth. Other challenges persist in the sector, such as low pay, involuntary part-time employment, and a lack of algorithmic transparency. A similar phenomenon can be observed in the ride-hailing sector. The sector is predominantly structured around an employment-based model, although employment contracts are channelled through companies holding private hire vehicle licences (VTC in the Spanish context), often linked to platforms such as Cabify and Uber, rather than by the platforms themselves. The recognition of employee status allows drivers to access protective mechanisms and employees’ collective rights. However, the outsourcing of vehicle and driver management to VTC companies weakens the effectiveness of these advances, since digital platforms — whose activities have a significant impact on working conditions in the sector — remain outside these regulatory mechanisms. The sector also continues to face challenges relating to the measurement of working time, low wages, variable remuneration systems tied to revenue generation, and the lack of transparency in algorithmic management. In sectors such as care services (Cuideo) and nursing (Livo), which are largely employment-based, platforms function as intermediaries or placement agencies, handling personnel selection, social security registration and deregistration, and payroll, while leaving the responsibility for hiring to families or hospitals, without assuming any role as employers. This arrangement creates gaps in occupational health and safety, the exercise of collective rights, data transparency, and the establishment of effective communication channels. The presence of digital platforms in these sectors does not appear to contribute significantly to improve job quality. In other areas of the platform economy that continue to rely on self-employment, such as Taskrabbit in the home-repairs and moving sector, the structural limitations of the self-employment model persist, offering fewer guarantees and rights than employment-based work. Overall, the transition to an employment-based model is a necessary but insufficient condition to ensure fair work in the platform economy. This report, the second undertaken by Fairwork Spain, evaluates seven platforms against the five Fairwork principles of fair work : • Fair pay: Four platforms (Just Eat, Cabify, Uber, and Livo) pay above the statutory minimum wage (€16,576 per year in 2025, equivalent to €9.26 gross per hour). Livo stands out for also exceeding the estimated living wage (€10.6/hour), with pay reaching up to €42/hour in specific cases . However, most platforms do not guarantee adequate earnings once work-related costs and unpaid time are accounted for, forcing many workers to extend their working hours or take on multiple jobs. • Fair conditions: Only Just Eat attains a full score, providing robust occupational health and safety policies, training, and equipment provision at no cost to the workers, as well as comprehensive social protections, including fully paid sick leave. In other cases, particularly among self-employed or outsourced/subcontracted workers, there is insufficient evidence that systematic policies are available or consistently implemented, as observed in the VTC sector. • Fair contracts: Only Just Eat and Livo receive points under this principle, as they could show evidence that they offer transparent contracts that are compliant with legislation. In the remaining cases, insufficient empirical evidence was found to confirm that all requirements of this principle were met. • Fair management: Only Just Eat and Cabify partially meet this principle, by showing proof of providing effective channels for dialogue and grievance procedures. However, no platform achieves a full score due to the absence of clear evidence on the implementation of systematic equality and non-discrimination policies, even though no active discriminatory practices were identified. • Fair representation: Cabify, Uber, and Just Eat enable the effective exercise of collective rights. In the cases of Cabify and Uber, this is facilitated through the VTC companies. Just Eat stands out for having signed collective agreements and maintaining a well-established trade-union representation structure. For the remaining platforms, no sufficient evidence of robust mechanisms for worker representation could be found. In summary, the Spanish context reflects significant progress in the transition toward an employment-based model of platform work. However, structural challenges persist, including the outsourcing or subcontracting of work management, the fragmentation of employer responsibilities, low wages, and algorithmic opacity. While formalization under an employment-based model is necessary, it represents only a starting point for establishing fairer employment relationships within the platform economy. |
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