Glovo receives a fine of 57 million euros for violating work regulations

The Spanish delivery platform Globo has received a new fine of 57 million euros for having violated labor regulations, mainly for employing delivery drivers as independent workers, the Spanish Ministry of Labor said on Tuesday.

With this new fine, the total sanctions imposed by the Spanish Labor Inspectorate on the platform, owned for a few months by the German group, now amount to 205 million euros (about 222 million dollars). Delivery Heroas specified by the ministry to AFP.

A large part of this latest fine of 57 million euros derives from irregularities in the hiring of 7,000 delivery drivers in Madrid, employed as self-employed workers when they should have been considered as salaried employees, according to the Labor Inspectorate.

In addition, Glovo was sanctioned for employing almost 800 foreign nationality distributors in an irregular situation, without a work permit, according to the Ministry, immersed for months in a struggle with the delivery platforms.

“No company in Spain, however large or small it may be, is going to remain outside the law,” said the Minister of Labor, the communist Yolanda Díaz, when asked by journalists.

The government of the socialist Pedro Sánchez approved in May 2021 a reform of the Workers’ Statute to introduce the “presumption of employment” to all delivery drivers who use applications such as Uber Eats, Globo o Deliveroo.

This text, dubbed the Rider law, implied the hiring of thousands of distributors until now considered “independent”, but it collided with the rejection of some platforms, especially Glovo, whom its critics accuse of evading the reform.

Contacted by AFP, Glovo assured that the facts that the Labor Inspectorate accuses him of are from a period “prior to the entry into force of the so-called Rider law” and assured that he will file an appeal against the decision.

“The sanction proposal refers to an operating model that no longer exists in Spain,” added the platform.

After the adoption of the Rider law, Glovo announced that it would hire the delivery people who work in its supermarkets online, but that the food delivery people would continue to be independent with a new statute that would reinforce their autonomy.

The two main Spanish unions, UGT and CCOO, then appealed to the Labor Inspectorate.