Company fined over a million euro for using self-employed workers

The Clintu platform, which offers home cleaning services, has been ordered to pay 1.29 million euro in arrears for Social Security contributions, as it is considered proven that there was an employment relationship between the company and its 505 workers, who were operating as self-employed, but carrying out the functions which should have required for them to be contracted by the firm.

The Social Court No. 15 of Barcelona has recognised that the platform is a provider of cleaning services and not a mere intermediary through a platform that puts cleaners and customers in contact.

“The workers received orders and indications from Clintu, and it was Clintu who organised the work and gave full coverage to the services requested by the clients,” says the sentence.

“This ruling marks the line of how registrations in Social Security should be by this type of workers and puts obstacles to possible fraud by the company,” says Montse Arcos, a lawyer who has won the case in which she represented 30 workers.

The company said that its core business was IT because it had developed the application technology, and was simply managing it. “This implied that the Social Security costs in the general scheme for those affected were not assumed by the company, but by themselves by registering in the Special Scheme for Domestic Employees”, affirms the lawyer.

The resolution comes after almost four years in which it has been shown how the economy of digital platforms is an economic model that is based on the precariousness of workers. “The collective agreement was not applied nor did they have rest because they had to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week at the disposal of the company,” adds Arcos.

But it has been shown that the cleaners did not have their own productive infrastructure and that Clintu was the one who contacted the clients and paid for the web platform through which the requests were made. In addition, the lawyer points out, that the price was set by the relationship between the platform and the client, in a range of €9 to €25. “Clintu was the one who charged for the service. There is no autonomous activity on the part of the workers, quite the opposite”, she adds.

The lawyer believes that this sentence could help other cases that occurred in Madrid and Valencia, cities where Clintu also provides his services.

The sentence also highlights the precarious of many companies who falsely employ the services of self-employed workers who should be contracted.

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