Violations by Food Delivery Services Uncovered by Financial Police

On Thursday, officers of the financial police inspected 67 businesses and 75 couriers across Austria, as announced by the Ministry of Finance on Friday. Previous interviews had already revealed that a significant portion of freelance contractors were working illegally.

Financial police uncovered violations in employee registrations at food delivery services

In 50 of the cases inspected on Thursday, there is suspicion of incorrectly reported employment status. In three cases, encountered food couriers were not registered with social security and were receiving unemployment benefits. Seven food couriers were neither registered nor had a work permit. Additionally, one food courier did not have a proper residence permit. The operation was conducted in cooperation with the Austrian Health Insurance Fund (ÖGK).

The background of the recent raids, according to the Ministry of Finance, was that in recent months, genuine employment relationships were increasingly being converted into freelance contracts. Labor and Social Minister Korinna Schumann (SPÖ) announced a focus on platform work and bogus self-employment at the beginning of April in light of the job cuts at Lieferando and the shift to freelance couriers. In addition to Lieferando, major food delivery services in Austria include Foodora and Wolt.

Foodora emphasized to the APA that the company registers all couriers "properly with social security before they start working." Their documents are "thoroughly checked and verified during the application process." Lieferando did not want to comment on the "ongoing investigations at this time." Wolt informed the APA that they had not yet been contacted by the authorities, but the company is "of course" ready to cooperate with them. When taking on new courier partners, it is checked "whether they have a valid business license, a tax number, and a valid residence permit."

Marterbauer: "No Tolerance"

"Attempts are being made to gain advantages at the expense of other market participants and especially the employees," said Finance Minister Markus Marterbauer according to the release. "There must be no tolerance here. Even if service companies are under intense competitive pressure, fair competition must be ensured."

Social Minister Schumann described the "systematic circumvention of labor law protection regulations" as "unacceptable." This would primarily harm employees, as they would "lose essential parts of their health, pension, and unemployment rights, and ultimately their essential social security."

(APA/Red)

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