It's still an open question whether this is legal in some countries, e.g. Denmark. It's being argued heavily that Wolt shouldn't be allowed to avoid pension, payed vacation, and payed sick leave, which are required by law for all workers. The competing Just Eat have just signed a union agreement with couriers which includes full benefits, without increasing prices for customers.
I'm honestly not sure if you're sarcastic. These are all basic human rights in most developed countries, and even in many non-developed ones. At least in theory, regulations are designed primary for the people and not for better business at all costs.
I'm sorry I worded it wrong. You are right, a janitor is absolutely deserving of all these benefits. Its just that in the US we are so far away from that norm it is a shock to hear that even a position that is typically farmed out to the lowest bidders here in the states is completely covered with no strings. I just wanted to confirm if all jobs are covered as it was leading to additional questions in my mind such as how do smaller companies manage to pay for all these benefits for entry level positions? Is it covered by the state and the company just pays into a general tax?
Why wouldn't a janitor be deserving of these things? They work hard, their job is essential for the running of other businesses, and most of all they are humans too.
A janitor is absolutely deserving of all this. My wording was poor, I should have said something more along the lines of entry level worker. This is so far from the norm in the US that I was wondering how smaller companies manage to cover the costs of these benefits. I guess they pay a general tax and the government picks up the cost?
On one hand if you can't afford to pay your employees and provide them basic benefits like paid time off, sick leave etc, then you don't deserve to be in business.
It of course depends on the country how things are implemented, but here there is a central insurance fund that all employees pay into. Then when an employee needs to take time off for parental leave the company applies to the fund and the fund covers the expenses. The company can then choose to pay out more than the fund does, or not. As is normal for benefits. This means though that every employee has a right to at least 16 weeks of leave at somewhere between 70-100% of pay. Details change the specifics.
Healthcare has little to nothing to do with companies. Technically you can sometimes get a discount by applying to a group scheme through your work, but mostly it is done independently. It costs about €170 a month a person. Depending upon how much you earn you can get a subsidy from the government for up to 100% of your monthly expense. That €170 covers most things you could need healthcare wise, although somethings aren't covered unless you buy addons, for example eyeglasses. Everyone is required to have health insurance.
Can't claim for Denmark, but in the UK absolutely. We distinguish between a few different types of employment but janitors would typically be employees and entitled to these things.
Def not in Finland. The question whether the freelance status is legal or whether the couriers should be classified as employees is still open. There was a preliminary decision that they are employees but the court process is still ongoing.
Correct. The labor board has issued its opinion that they should be considered employees but it hasn't yet been enforced by the courts.
Instead, all Wolt couriers in Finland have been "independent contractors" and had to have their own business name or do other paperwork, that because of how Finnish law works for small business owners, means they get cut off from any public health insurance, unemployment insurance, etc.
Courier work doesn't pay nearly enough to afford private insurance here, and since they aren't unionized (because after all they're not "workers" but business owners), they can't join a union unemployment benefit either.
There has been an ongoing attempt at unionization but it has been difficult to push through; the apps are fighting against it tooth and nail because they already run at a loss and underpay the drivers as it is. Wolt deliberately obfuscates how much couriers are making an hour in the driver app, runs propaganda articles on the customer app, and both it and Foodora have continued to fight against employee or union recognition in the courts.
It's become apparent for a while they are running scared, and running out of money. Quality of service has massively degraded over the last two years, as they've stripped support staff to the bone, manipulated delivery fees and ranges to nickle-and-dime customers, massive order delays and fudged estimates, started manipulating algorithms to push certain restaurants and promotions, rushed couriers causing constant order failures, which then mean more cost in customer refunds. It's god bad enough I stopped using it completely, because I just could no longer trust that I'd even get what I ordered, or that it wouldn't be left a sodden mess leaking all over my entryway.
It's an app that was probably going to implode if they didn't get a buyout and soon, so this move is incredibly predictable. My only surprise is just how greedy they went with the bogus valuation here.
> because of how Finnish law works for small business owners, means they get cut off from any public health insurance
This is not true. Finnish public health insurance is residency based: Every resident has it [1]. What you are probably thinking of, is the extra occupational private health insurance, that most Finnish employers provide for their employees (so that during work days, the employees don't need to wait in line in the public health services, but can get back to work sooner after seeing a private doctor).
My father-in-law was a Finn, born and raised, and had to pay for everything out of pocket because he owned his own home business fabricating HVAC ductwork, and of course got no sick leave if he did get injured and couldn't work.
It's possible to buy private insurance of course, a common solution for tech freelancers here is to make your own business and then hire yourself as an employee, so at least you can get an occupational health care plan.
But private health insurance here is a joke anyway, they don't cover a ton of things because they assume they can just refer you to the public care for any of the complicated stuff. Mine wouldn't even cover a CPAP machine, I had to get on a public waiting list and borrow one from the state, and it took months.
I believe most of the couriers have ”residence permit for an entrepreneur”. That means you get emergency care but thats about it. As your link states ” Jos olet tullut Suomeen tilapäisesti muualta kuin EU- tai Eta-maasta, Sveitsistä, Isosta-Britanniasta tai Pohjois-Irlannista, sinulla on oikeus vain kiireelliseen sairaanhoitoon. Hoidon kustannukset voidaan laskuttaa sinulta jälkikäteen. ”
> It's become apparent for a while they are running scared, and running out of money.
In he meantime it seems that their executive + lead level salaries took quite a hike between 2019 and 2020. At the sametime there were stories about how cost conscious they are. Funny.
Wolt's delivery staff haven't been treated as actual employees in its native Finland. It was actually quite recent when the occupational safety administration ruled that Wolt's delivery staff are actually employees, but Wolt is appealing.
I wonder if that's why they are now exiting. They can see that there is no future for this kind of business as governments crack down on the platform economy.
The same has been speculated in Finnish groups/forums, probably it affected the decision, but of course we can't know how much. They had also been thinking of going public, so this acquisition seems safer option
Surely this is not the case anymore, nowadays Wolt drivers are either fresh arrived immigrants with no language or actual illegals - it's definitely not because Wolt cares about their wellbeing and wants to hire them as employees.
73% [1] of couriers don't want to be employees (in Finland). They are quite happy with this arrangement as it means they are paid more. The survey that was conducted was quite thorough and interesting. It's worth a read.
(Just stating facts here, don't have an opinion myself on this)
Classic short-term fallacy. Yes, you get more net payout as a "contractor" - but you don't get paid sick leave or pension contributions unless you care for these on your own.
This is why this model is very frowned upon by European societies as it inevitably leaves taxpayers to pick up the tab in the form of basic social security.
You don't even get paid more. The apps have been circulating this myth in the press, but it's based on obfuscating of the numbers at best, and outright lies at worst.
There's a reason most of their couriers are immigrants: anyone else can get paid more stocking a supermarket or driving a cab.
> After they freed the taxi market even that is somewhere on level of gig-work.
Certainly the freeing could have been done better, but the system before wasn't exactly healthy either. There was a fixed number of taxi licenses, and taxi companies were of course heavily lobbying against increasing the number. Since there were so few of them, good luck getting a taxi on a weekend night. Then again, if you were lucky and got a taxi, it was a shiny clean Mercedes (which perhaps tells something about the profit margins they were running at).
On other hand good luck getting taxi now during weekday night, specially outside cities. Prices have gone up and from what I have heard quality of service has gone down.
I think licensing system we had made sense, prices were capped, service was at least controlled and availability during all times was guaranteed. Ofc, this lead to some issues when there was extreme demand...
People are really bad with long term planning. Your average 20 year old doesn't know anything about pensions and considers themselves to be indestructible.
It would be ridiculously easy to just copy the US and do away with the social welfare system. See how many will actually save for their retirement lol.
Being non-employee at these income levels is just horrible deal. Miss quite many things from pensions to possible unemployment benefits and possibly even paid vacation.
It only really starts to become reasonable if you can bill yourself as consultant in fields like IT.
There’s also no reason an employee couldn’t have fully flexible hours if the business model is suitable anyway. Well, in principle no reason, anyway, in practice current employment legislation and collective agreements in Finland place limits on working times because historically the risk of employers voluntelling employees to work less-than-pleasant hours has been deemed too high.