Only 1.83% of delivery people and 3.91% of VTC drivers took part in the first elections for representatives of self-employed platform workers, won by an organization, the National Federation of Autoentrepreneurs and Microentrepreneurs (FNAE), perceived as being close employers, announced Monday, May 16, the Association of Independent Platforms (API).

“Participation was not fully up to the challenges”, acknowledges in a press release the API, which specifies that “this observation must take into account the unprecedented nature of this innovative process, a first in Europe, which concerns traditionally lightly unionized freelancers”.

According to API, which joins the official and complete results provided by the Authority for Social Relations of Employment Platforms (ARPE), a public body created to organize this election, the FNAE came out on top among delivery people with 390 votes out of 1,547 cast (i.e. 28.45% of the votes). In all, 84,243 people had been authorized to vote.

The CGT (27.26%), Union-Indépendants (22.32%), of which the CFDT is a founding member, and SUD-Commerces (5.69%) are the three other organizations to exceed the 5% threshold, which is essential to be considered representative and benefit from three representatives, who will be elected for an initial period of two years. The CFTC, the CNT-SO, FO, the UNSA and the National Federation of Road Transport (FNTR) are eliminated.

Social dialogue currently non-existent

Among VTCs, the Association des VTC de France came out on top with 610 votes out of 1,541 cast (42.81%), for 39,314 people who had been authorized to vote. The seven candidate organizations of this college are on the other hand all representative: Union-Indépendants (11.51%), the Association of Lyonnais Independent Drivers (ACIL), with 11.44% of the votes, FO (9.19%), FNAE (8.98%), CFTC (8.84%) and UNSA (7.23%) complete the ranking.

This election, which took place from May 9 to 16, is the first step in the construction of social dialogue, currently non-existent, in the sector of the self-employed collaborating with platforms such as Uber or Deliveroo. The election should allow the professionals concerned to acquire new rights and obtain improvements in their working conditions, “while respecting the status of self-employed, to which most of them are attached”, declared the Minister of Labour, Elisabeth Borne.

Elected representatives will notably be able to conclude agreements with the platforms on remuneration, health at work or even professional training.