About a year and two months after Spain’s Rider Law began, the country’s second vice-president, Yolanda Díaz, helped broaden the standard by joining a coalition of eight EU members to push the framework to all 27 states. Spain co-signed a letter with Italy, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Luxembourg, and others, urging the European Commission to safeguard two core assumptions embedded in the platform work directive. First, that app-based distributors such as Glovo, Uber Eats, and similar services should be treated as employers by default. Second, that any company using algorithms to coordinate internal operations must inform workers’ representatives about how those algorithms function and what effects they have. In short, these are the two pillars of Spain’s Rider Law.
With a letter addressed to the Czech Republic, which currently chairs the rotating presidency of the Council of Europe, and to the European Commission’s employment and social rights commissioner, Díaz began elevating one of the most important standards to a European scale. This momentum arrives even without a fully codified Rider Act, whose impact has already been demonstrated by court rulings and by labor inspectors in various regions. The compact extension brokered by Díaz with employers and unions, roughly one and a half pages long, did not spell out every detail or inspection mechanism, yet it clearly reinforced the position of delivery workers under the new framework.
The signatories insist that the current directive guarantee proper worker classification and full enjoyment of rights, and that data and information about algorithmic processes be accessible to platform workers and their representatives to enable effective regulation of those algorithms. The aim is to broaden collective bargaining, according to the letter made available through the Prensa Ibérica group.
The digital distribution platforms sector remains opposed to Spain’s Ministry of Labor legislation. Glovo has continued to work with independent couriers and has resisted adapting its model to the new rules. Uber Eats, whose main rival shifted to a subcontracted fleet in the first year, later returned to employing self-employed delivery workers to compete on equal terms with Glovo within the last month, a move seen as an attempt to balance competitiveness with worker protections.
No inspections or penalties yet
The Labor Inspectorate has not yet closed cases under the new law, and authorities have treated the Rider Law as applicable in cities such as Barcelona and Valencia, where fines totaling around 80 million euros have been imposed for temporary periods. Uncertainty remains about whether Glovo or Uber is fully complying with the Rider provisions, as inspectors have not had sufficient time to review every case. With the slow pace of social courts, it could take up to eighteen months to file lawsuits, and there have been no criminal penalties issued to any delivery workers who attempted to claim employee status under the new framework.
When Díaz announced an intention to bring the company she founded into the spotlight, her stance intensified the tension with Glovo’s leadership. Oscar Pierre suggested that the company can determine whether its decision not to hire deliverers violates workers’ rights, a claim that underscores the ongoing debate over classification and benefits in the gig economy, especially as EU-wide standards begin to take shape.