Decent work, cost of living and the future of Europe

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By the Workers’ Group

 

As far as the social agenda is concerned, the first two weeks of June 2025 were dominated by the ILO Conference in Geneva. Among many pressing issues of social justice, platform work was one of the items featuring high on its agenda.

The current cost-of-living crisis, worsened by recent events but with roots that go much further back, cannot be understood without looking at decent work – or more precisely, the absence of it. Decoupled from inflation almost everywhere, wages have not just stagnated but, in many cases, have actually decreased over time.

Cheap industrial mass production abroad, often carried out with complete disregard for labour, environmental or human rights, has enabled a relatively high level of consumption to coexist with this reality. In many European countries, a lack of savings, rising indebtedness and the inability of young people to move out of their parents’ homes have helped sustain these consumption levels among younger generations. Whether due to unemployment or poor working conditions, many have turned to platform work as either a supplementary income source or a way out.

As the EESC determined, platform jobs can indeed be flexible and worthwhile employment alternatives in certain situations. However, they must be clearly distinguished from genuine self-employment and require strong protection of workers’ rights, safeguards around data protection and access to management algorithms for social partners. The Workers’ Group also commissioned a study for the EESC, building on the idea of a comprehensive definition of worker and a presumption of an employment relationship.

The Platform Work Directive, once fully transposed, will mark another important step in the right direction. There are many reasons why this is important, but two stand out in particular: first, allowing working conditions to worsen in one sector will eventually affect others; and second, the absence of decent work, combined with the deepening cost-of-living crisis, is fuelling the fires of the populist far right, threatening the future of Europe and democracy itself. 

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