Skip to content
Home » PAM’s Rönni-Sällinen: Wolt is playing for time
Press releases

03.09.2025 14:44

PAM’s Rönni-Sällinen: Wolt is playing for time

Wolt has announced that it is applying to overturn the Supreme Administrative Court’s decision, which stated that courier work is done within an employment relationship. However, the Working Hours Act would not be applied to the work. PAM estimates that the company is trying to avoid complying with the decision.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Wolt says that the legal status of platform work in Finland remains unclear and calls for clear legislation.

— The Supreme Administrative Court’s decision did clarify the status of couriers. According to the ruling, couriers are in an employment relationship. By applying for the decision to be overturned, Wolt is in fact delaying the clarification of couriers’ status and appears to be avoiding compliance with the decision, says Annika Rönni-Sällinen, president of the Service Union United PAM.

Wolt hopes that the EU platform work directive will be implemented in Finland to create clear rules.

— We too have been waiting for the EU platform work directive to be implemented into Finnish legislation. The starting point of the directive is that the contractual relationship between a digital platform that mediates work and the person performing the work should legally be presumed to be an employment relationship, Rönni-Sällinen says.

Wolt states that the decision by the Supreme Administrative Court could have broad implications for almost all platform-based work. It says it will continue looking into how courier work within an employment relationship, but outside the scope of the Working Hours Act, could be implemented alongside entrepreneurship. According to Wolt, this requires close cooperation and dialogue with different authorities.

— After the court ruling, we informed Wolt that we can solve issues in the collective agreement in a way that allows operations to continue under an employment relationship while taking both parties’ interests into account.

Progress has nevertheless been slow.

— A major problem in platform-based work is that the business model seems to rely on the fact that the actual worker’s compensation is substandard. The operations seem to be financially barely viable or even unprofitable – except for those in management positions, Rönni-Sällinen reflects.

Keywords:

employment relationship European union legislation Platform economy

What did you think of this content?

Read next

Search