Recently, platforms such as JD.com, Meituan, and Ele.me have announced that they will pay social security for food delivery riders, which has attracted widespread attention from society. This also marks an important step for the food delivery industry in terms of labor relations and rights protection. Currently, there are 84 million new forms of employment workers in China, and their labor rights protection has always been a focus of social attention. On December 23, 2024, the Supreme People's Court released the first batch of guiding cases on labor disputes related to new forms of employment, timely responding to the social concerns of flexible employment and new employment groups, and assisting the healthy and orderly development of the platform economy. One of the guiding cases is the "Shengmou Huan v. Jiangsu Network Technology Co., Ltd. Confirmation of Labor Relationship Dispute Case" heard by the People's Court of Huqiu District, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province (this case has been included in the case library of the People's Court). Recently, reporters from the Rule of Law Daily went deep into the front line and conducted interviews on the case. This case still needs to be traced back to many years ago - Sheng Mouhuan, a "post-95" young man from rural Anhui, applied to become a delivery rider in the Hushuguan area of a certain food delivery platform in Huqiu, Suzhou through mobile registration. On the evening of August 24, 2019, at around 10 pm, he was hit by a reversing small car while passing a gas station, resulting in a head landing and brain injury. After judicial appraisal, he was found to have a level 9 disability. The traffic police department has determined that the driver of the small car is fully responsible for the accident, and Sheng Mouhuan is not responsible. Faced with huge medical expenses and a series of other losses, with the support of his family and lawyer, Sheng Mouhuan sought legal protection from the employer, but encountered a series of difficult problems one after another: firstly, to confirm whether there is a labor relationship with the employer. In the labor arbitration, Sheng Mouhuan was unable to prove that he was employed by a platform delivery contracting company, Jiangsu Network Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as a certain network technology company), and his salary was paid by another company. Therefore, it cannot be proven that a certain network technology company managed him. After mediation, the two parties were unable to reach an agreement. The labor arbitration institution made an arbitration award and did not support his request to confirm the labor relationship. Why can't I prove that I am employed, even though I have to attend meetings at the company every morning, have attendance rules for commuting, and receive salary from the company? Originally, during the process of registering as a delivery person through the delivery platform app, Sheng Mouhuan underwent facial recognition and had to say "I want to become an individual business owner" according to prompts in order to register as a delivery person, which has led to his current awkward situation. For this reason, Sheng Mouhuan sued a certain network technology company that contracted the delivery service of a food delivery platform in the Hushuguan area of Huqiu, Suzhou, to the Huqiu District Court, requesting confirmation of the existence of a labor relationship with the defendant's network technology company. In the lawsuit, the court added Chengmou Company, which had signed a delivery contract with Shengmou Huan, as a third party to participate in the lawsuit. In the lawsuit, the plaintiff Sheng Mouhuan stated that she had been working at the defendant's office since April 25, 2019. Her specific job duties included delivering takeout, conducting morning safety education, and having clear requirements for commuting and attendance. The working hours were from 7am to 12pm, and her salary was paid to the plaintiff through Cheng's company's corporate account on the 25th of each month. The defendant, a certain network technology company, argued that the plaintiff was not an employee of the defendant and the arbitration award was correct. They requested the court to dismiss the plaintiff's lawsuit request in accordance with the law. The third party, Cheng, stated that the plaintiff is not our employee and there is no employment relationship between the two parties. The plaintiff entrusted us to register the identity of individual industrial and commercial households on behalf of the plaintiff. After the defendant contracted the business to our platform, we subcontracted the business to the plaintiff. Finally, the defendant entrusted us to settle the contracting fees with the individual industrial and commercial households operated by the plaintiff, rather than paying wages. The two parties only have a cooperative relationship. And we have no site in Suzhou, the plaintiff is not recruited by us, and we have not conducted attendance and management for the plaintiff. We have no constraints on the plaintiff and there is no labor relationship between us. Wu Wanjiang, the president of Huqiu District Court, told reporters that after the court's trial, it was found that the plaintiff Sheng Mouhuan downloaded a certain food delivery platform app, performed facial recognition when registering as a rider, and said "I want to become an individual business" according to the prompt. Afterwards, the plaintiff began food delivery, and the defendant purchased employer's liability insurance for a logistics delivery partner of a certain food delivery platform for the plaintiff. On May 30, 2019, the defendant, a certain network technology company (Party A), signed a "Dinggehuo" platform service agreement with a third party, Chengmou Company (Party B). According to the agreement, Party A and Party B do not establish any non platform service contract relationship such as labor or employment. Party A will subcontract the project to Party B, and Party B may sign a separate project subcontracting agreement with the receiving party after accepting the project order. If the receiving party suffers or causes personal or property damage to any third party during the execution of the task, Party A shall bear the consequences on its own and shall not require Party B to bear liability for infringement or compensation. The court also found that Sheng Mouhuan completed the electronic signature of the "Personal Studio Registration Agreement" with a third party, Cheng Mou Company, during his work period, and obtained a business license for an individual industrial and commercial household named "Yixinghuo" Business Service Studio in a certain town of a certain county ". It was agreed that the two parties had an independent civil contracting relationship, and the second party did not accept any management from the first party. The first party also did not pay wages to the second party but paid contracting fees, which does not belong to a labor relationship. During the period from June to September 2019, the plaintiff's salary statement screenshots all displayed the words "Jiangsu Network Technology Co., Ltd. - Explanation of Salary Rules for a certain website". The salary composition includes three parts: base salary commission, subsidy rewards, and rider activity rewards, with a base salary of 0 yuan. In the end, the Huqiu District Court made a first instance judgment supporting Sheng Mouhuan's lawsuit and ruling that he had a labor relationship with the defendant. The existence of a labor relationship between an employee and an employer is mainly determined by examining factors such as whether the employee's job content falls within the employer's main business scope, whether they accept the employer's daily management, and whether they accept labor remuneration Wu Wanjiang analyzed that the plaintiff's daily work is managed by the defendant's site. The plaintiff accepts orders through the platform app and receives compensation based on labor performance. The plaintiff cannot refuse orders distributed by the platform. The plaintiff's salary actually comes from the defendant. Based on these circumstances, the above judgment is made. Experts point out that the guiding significance of this case lies in the court's emphasis on the "dominance" of labor management, which focuses on the defendant company's daily management of workers such as scheduling and attendance. Workers are not allowed to refuse assignments, thus embodying "dominance" as the employer directly arranging work, direct management, etc. In summary, as long as practitioners have employment facts that constitute dominant labor management, they should be legally recognized as having a labor relationship. Based solely on the plaintiff's statement 'I want to become an individual industrial and commercial household', it cannot be deemed that the plaintiff has already known and agreed to the content of the agreement. Moreover, at the time of signing the project subcontracting agreement, the individual industrial and commercial household that was a party to the agreement had not yet been registered and established, which is unreasonable. The plaintiff's involvement in food delivery services in Suzhou and the establishment of an individual industrial and commercial household in Huai'an are also unreasonable. The defendant used a virtual software platform to guide the plaintiff to register as an individual business owner by signing an electronic format contract, in the absence of legal consequences, in order to establish a so-called cooperative relationship between equal subjects and avoid the responsibility of the employer. It cannot be determined that the plaintiff has the true intention to engage in takeaway business as an individual business owner. (New Society)