The fight that the Government maintains against the underground economy is having its economic impact on the system’s accounts. Social Security has already collected nearly 340 million euros thanks to the more than 88,000 false self-employed workers who have emerged since 2020, according to data from the Ministry of Labor.
More specifically, the Labor Inspection has carried out, since 2020 and until last September, a total of 41,992 actions that have been resolved with 45,791 infractions, more than half of which were concentrated in 2022, the year record in defaults, with more than 27,300. Although 2023 is not on a bad path either, since so far this year there have already been more than 14,300 cases.
All of these actions have made it possible to regularize 88,074 false self-employed workers, who have been registered in the General Social Security Regime. The total amount of liquidation proceedings amounts to 343.9 million euros, for all the fees of those workers that the offending companies have had to pay and that they try to fraudulently avoid.
UGT denounced this Friday that today, and despite the ‘rider law’ that came into force in August 2021, “many digital platforms still try to circumvent Labor Law” and “exploit” their employees in a “brutal” way. workers, among which he expressly cited Glovo and Uber.
The union led by Pepe Álvarez warns that we must remain alert, as several digital platforms insist on this type of exploitation and fraud, through cutting-edge algorithms. In fact, in these first nine months of 2023, nearly 30,000 false self-employed workers have already come to light.
Pending macro trials
Although there are already more than 60 sentences condemning these illegal labor practices – some of illegal cases but others referring to macro-trials that have forced compensation to more than 4,000 Uber workers who had been operating as false self-employed workers -, they have been opened new judicial fronts “in a conflict that seems to have no end and that keeps public institutions collapsed,” according to UGT.
Thus, numerous macro-trials are still pending that affect thousands of workers, such as that of 3,200 delivery workers against Glovo in Madrid on November 16; or that of Amazon on January 24, 2024. In addition, new judicial fronts are opening beyond delivery companies, as is the case of digital platforms of people dedicated to care or cleaning, as well as social networks, such as You Tube (Google).