Wolt couriers remain at the centre of a dispute over employment status in Finland after two trade unions asked the Parliamentary Ombudsman to examine whether occupational safety and health authorities properly supervised the company’s operating model following a Supreme Administrative Court ruling.
The Service Union United PAM and the Finnish Transport Workers’ Union AKT submitted their complaint on Wednesday, asking the Ombudsman to determine whether the authorities fulfilled their legal responsibilities and whether any supervisory action was taken without unnecessary delay.
The complaint follows a Supreme Administrative Court ruling of 22 May 2025 concerning Wolt’s food delivery couriers. The court found that the characteristics of an employment relationship were present in the work performed by couriers under Wolt’s operating model, even though the company had classified them as self-employed entrepreneurs.
The ruling was the result of a dispute that had already been under examination by Finnish labour authorities for several years. According to the Supreme Administrative Court’s account of the case, the occupational safety and health division of the former Regional State Administrative Agency for Southern Finland had concluded in 2021 that the relationship between Wolt and its couriers met the legal criteria for employment. The authority subsequently ordered Wolt to keep records of couriers’ working hours and the compensation paid for that work.
Wolt challenged the legal position, eventually seeking to have the Supreme Administrative Court’s 2025 decision overturned. On 19 March 2026, the court rejected that application, leaving its earlier ruling in force.
The unions now say the central question is what happened after those court decisions.
PAM argues that the practical position of many couriers has not changed to reflect the court’s findings. The union says the majority of Wolt couriers continue to work extensively under an entrepreneurial arrangement, while the company continues to recruit couriers on that basis. PAM president Annika Rönni-Sällinen said the court’s decisions should give labour protection authorities a strong basis for examining Wolt’s practices.
“The court decisions should serve as a particularly strong basis for the occupational safety and health authorities to intervene in Wolt’s activities,” Rönni-Sällinen said, according to PAM.
The complaint is not asking the Ombudsman to reconsider the Supreme Administrative Court’s ruling. Instead, the unions want an examination of the authorities’ conduct and whether their supervisory responsibilities were properly carried out after the court decisions.
Among the issues raised by the unions is what supervisory action has been taken, whether any measures were left undone, whether there were delays and, if so, why those delays occurred.
AKT president Ismo Kokko said the unions were concerned that a court decision could have limited practical effect if the operating arrangement it addressed continued.
“Our complaint stems from concern that court decisions appear to have no effect when an operating practice found unlawful is allowed to continue,” Kokko said, according to the unions’ statement.
The dispute also illustrates the wider difficulty surrounding platform-based work, where companies can organise services through digital platforms while workers may formally operate as independent entrepreneurs. In Finland, the legal question is not determined solely by what a company calls the relationship. The Supreme Administrative Court’s 2025 ruling examined the actual characteristics of the work and concluded that the conditions for an employment relationship were met in Wolt’s operating model.
The issue has remained active beyond the court proceedings. In September 2026, PAM said it would no longer continue lengthy negotiations with Wolt over couriers’ employment conditions, arguing that the talks had failed to produce progress on pay and working conditions. The negotiations had lasted for almost three years.
The Parliamentary Ombudsman’s examination could therefore shift attention from the original legal classification of Wolt couriers to the conduct of the authorities responsible for enforcing employment legislation. The unions are seeking an answer to a narrower but consequential question: whether the supervisory system responded appropriately after Finland’s highest administrative court had ruled on the nature of the work.
For couriers still operating through Wolt under an entrepreneurial arrangement, that distinction has practical significance. The outcome of the Ombudsman’s examination could help clarify whether the authorities acted within their duties and whether the period following the court ruling involved an unjustified delay in supervision.
The complaint does not itself change the employment status of Wolt couriers. That issue was addressed by the Supreme Administrative Court in its 2025 decision. What remains under scrutiny is how that decision has been followed up by the authorities responsible for occupational safety and employment law supervision.
