Fairwork Poland Ratings 2024: Intermediation Undermining Workers’ Rights in the Platform Economy

Labour platforms have become a key pillar of the Polish economy, mediating a wide range of services from logistics to care. Estimates indicate that over 480,000 workers provide labour through these platforms, with numbers steadily rising.^[i] However, policymakers have largely focused on consumer safety, overlooking critical issues such as job security and worker protections. Research shows that these platforms often rely on complex contractual relationships and mediate employment through the use of intermediaries, complicating workers’ access to social security and undermining their labour rights.

This report provides the first comprehensive analysis of the working conditions faced by platform workers in Poland. The study examines six platforms in the ride-hailing and delivery sectors, where platform work has the most significant impact – both in terms of public perception and its critical role for workers. These platforms – Bolt, Freenow, Glovo, Pyszne.pl/Just Eat Takeaway, Uber, and UberEats – are scored against five Fairwork principles which consider fairness of pay, conditions, contracts, management, and representation. The scoring process draws on desk research, interviews with platform workers, and platform managers, with points awarded when researchers find evidence demonstrating compliance with the Fairwork principles.

^[i] This figure is derived by taking the total number of employed persons in the Polish economy in 2021 (16,780,000), and multiplying it by the percentage reported in the ETUI study on the platform economy (2.9%), representing those who engaged in work through labour platforms in Poland over the past 12 months, see Piasna, A., Zwysen, W., & Drahokoupil, J. (2022). The platform economy in Europe. Results from the Second ETUI Internet and Platform Work Survey (IPWS). Brussels: ETUI and GUS (2022) Pracujący, bezrobotni i bierni zawodowo (wyniki wstępne BAEL) w czwartym kwartale 2021 r., Warszawa.