The court earlier decided that Uber drivers are employees. Problems is that Uber does not adhere to the decision and that the Tax office seems unwilling to enforce it. We'll have to see if Deliveroo will stick to the decision.
We seem to be focused more on getting the stock market and the price of assets up, up, up, and calling that progress and a sign of prosperity for our society.
The French and the Russian revolutions have shown society has a breaking point at wich the working class will revolt and behead the ruling class. However, that was over 100 years ago and today, the ruling class has much better surveillance technology and weapons than the peasants of today and can monitor and quench any uprising before it even manifests.
Plus, the ruling and asset owning classes don't live within striking distance of the angry mobs like they did 100 years ago, but can live safely in a remote place like some island around New Zeeland and run their affairs remotely through a shell enterprise registered at a post-box in Luxembourg for example.
The best-case result for they employer is that the can deduct the employees share of social security from the last three wage payments, but no further. And that best case requires that there is no fault of the employer, which is a rare case.
Given that European law is fairly well aligned when it comes to labor law, I’d be surprised if there’s an option to substantially dip into the cabbies past payments.
Is it? My impression is different. Do you have any links?
However it certainly is not just a risk for the employer, also for the employee.
If you should have been marked as an employee, but have been submitting your taxes as a company then you have also profited from tax benefits in accordance with that company status. It's pretty important to get this right.
[1] https://ondernemersplein.kvk.nl/schijnzelfstandigheid-voorko...