The judge in charge of investigating the founder and CEO of Glovo, Oscar Pierre, for crimes against workers’ rights, summoned him to testify as accused on December 3, judicial sources informed elDiario.es. The statement was set in time to avoid another suspension, as happened during the originally scheduled appearance in September.
Before the magistrate of the 31st investigating court of Barcelona, several have already testified riders as witnesses. Along with the Labor Inspectorate reports, the workers’ testimonies constitute the bulk of the investigations investigating the declared illegal work model of the company founded by Pierre.
The prosecution accuses Pierre of having retained Glovo delivery drivers as false self-employed workers despite the Supreme Court ruling which prohibited it. The complaint is a step forward towards criminal proceedings after the various sanctions that, by administrative means, the Labor Inspectorate has already pronounced against the company for having ignored the historic judgment of the High Court which declared that riders of the company were fake self-employed in 2020.
Glovo’s practice is, in the opinion of the public prosecutor’s office, contrary to labor legislation “and undermines and suppresses the rights of employed workers”, for example in matters of salary, working hours, breaks, permits , vacation or social security protection. He recently requested to appear in the RidersxDerechos case, a pioneering group in the fight of delivery people against fake independents in the sector.
The Government approved the Rider Law in 2021 with the aim of putting an end to the systematic abuse of the figure of false self-employed workers among the main home delivery companies. Since then, Barcelona-based Glovo has challenged the Labor Ministry with a model it called “renewed,” but which continued to operate with autonomous delivery workers. Unions, delivery groups like RidersxDerechos, as well as the Labor Inspectorate, have confirmed that the new model continues to violate labor laws.
The prosecution accuses Pierre of wanting to maintain the relationship between the false independents and their delivery drivers to “reduce Glovo’s operating costs” by not guaranteeing riders a professional salary in accordance with the working day worked and stop paying the corresponding work contributions to Social Security. That is to say, continuing its employment model despite court decisions which forced it to hire false self-employed workers as employees,
In its desire to continue these practices, the government also modified the Penal Code to prevent abuses by false self-employed people. The offense Pierre faces carries prison sentences of six months to six years and punishes employers who restrict the rights of their workers by abusing their situation, including those who abuse bogus self-employed workers.
