Labor is investigating Uber Eats for its delivery hiring model.

The Labor Inspectorate has opened an investigation into Uber Eats to ensure that its hiring model complies with legal requirements for recognizing its workers as salaried employees , sources at the Ministry headed by Yolanda Díaz confirmed to Europa Press.

"The law is there to be obeyed. No company is above it. We've said it a thousand times: a person cycling with a backpack is not self-employed ," Díaz declared on social media after El País reported the start of this investigation into Uber Eats.

The Ministry of Labor is "strictly" monitoring that the hiring model of delivery companies complies with the legal requirements for labor recognition established in the so-called "Rider Law."

This regulation, which requires digital delivery platforms to hire their delivery drivers as employees, came into effect in August 2021.

The law, the result of an agreement between the Labor Ministry, the Workers' Commissions (CCOO), the UGT (General Workers' Union), and the employers' organizations CEOE and Cepyme, affects labor relations between platforms dedicated to the delivery or distribution of any product or merchandise and their employees.

It recognizes the presumption of employment status for workers who provide paid delivery services through companies that manage this work using a digital platform, in line with the ruling issued by the Supreme Court in September 2020, which established that delivery workers are employees and not self-employed.

Another delivery platform, Glovo, was previously fined for non-compliance with this requirement, receiving fines of more than €200 million from the Labor Inspectorate.

Glovo CEO and co-founder Oscar Pierre recently announced that, as of July 1, 100% of Glovo's fleet now has an employment contract . "There is no delivery platform in the world that has made such a rapid and radical transition," Pierre said.

"We're happy to finally reach this end of the chapter and open a new one where I hope there will be no conflict and we can build from the ground up," he added.

For its part, Just Eat filed a lawsuit against Glovo for unfair competition , the trial of which has already been finalized, for allegedly hiring its riders as fake freelancers, for which it is claiming €295 million in damages from Glovo.

Just Eat alleged in its lawsuit that there are numerous rulings condemning Glovo for hiring its delivery drivers as fake self-employed workers, as well as for violating labor law regulations.

This fact, he argued, places Just Eat at a "clear competitive disadvantage," since the company does hire delivery drivers, incurring high additional costs, as required by law.

Just Eat claims that by hiring fake freelancers, Glovo saved more than 645 million euros .