Gip Milan: Glovo not obliged to hire riders with a subordination contract

Setback for the Milan prosecutor's office in the legal case of Glovo, which ended up under commissionership for digital gangmastering: according to the Milan investigating judge, there is currently no obligation on the part of the Spanish company to hire riders with subordination contracts. The labor judge will take care of it, says the investigating judge (evidently on a case-by-case basis).

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The investigation coordinated by the Milanese prosecutor Paolo Storari had highlighted a deep-rooted system of exploitation, within which riders were paid 2-3 euros per delivery, without protection. The "remediation" process envisaged by the judicial administration, imposed after investigations by the Court, has led to an improvement in wages since September (14 euros per hour, with recognition of break times if longer than 3 minutes). But not everything has been resolved: for the prosecutor's office, which opposed the dissolution of the judicial administration, it is also necessary to provide a real subordination contract.

However, the investigating judge gave a different answer: the Labor Court must intervene on this point. Milan judge Roberto Crepaldi believes he must express his opinion only on the issue of a remuneration that avoids the possibility of the crime of gangmastering and not on the nature of the contract.

The matter requires "caution" and a case-by-case analysis given the economic-organizational impact on the company and on the workers themselves who are obliged to perform much more rigidly, for example in terms of hours and single clients. "Further caution must be induced by the fact that not even among the social partners - perhaps precisely due to the implications just highlighted - the issue of subordination is treated in a univocal way and the market in this sector offers diversified examples", writes the judge.

For Crepaldi, the precautionary intervention "remains based on verifying the achievement of remuneration levels sufficient to guarantee the constitutional rights of workers, a topic that is independent of the qualification of the relationship itself which could well be the subject of separate litigation before the labor judge".