The country report from the GDPoweR research project

The Polish report focuses on the ride-hailing and food delivery sectors. We show that workers operate within an opaque employment system, with limited social protections and widespread use of intermediaries and self-employment.

Compared to other partner countries in the project (Belgium, Spain, Austria, France), Poland’s situation stands out due to the complete absence of collective agreements and a very low level of unionisation in the sector. Although access to workers’ data is important, it remains low on the priority list of organisations and institutions working to improve conditions, simply because there are many other urgent issues to address.

Our research—based on desk studies, stakeholder consultations, focus groups, and data recovery workshops—highlights four main challenges:
🔍 real difficulties in accessing and understanding personal data by workers,
🤖 lack of algorithmic transparency, especially regarding crucial matters such as job allocation,
💬 marginal role of trade unions and absence of stable representation structures,
⚖️ growing reliance on intermediaries, leading to uncertainty in tax, social security, and legal status.

📢 We call for greater transparency in algorithmic management, stronger oversight of intermediaries, and a more robust institutional dialogue around platform workers’ rights.

We thank all platform workers and experts who participated in the focus groups. In particular, we are grateful to those workers who agreed to “recover” their data from platforms and share it with us for analysis.

📅 Join us on 11 September 2025 in Warsaw for the final conference of the GDPoweR project, where we will present our findings and discuss policy recommendations. Register for the event here: https://ibs.org.pl/en/news/gdpower-conference-workers-data-collective-bargaining-and-the-platform-economy/