An absolutely stunning strike of food delivery couriers in the UK took place on Friday [2 February], demonstrating the power that these precarious workers do have when they stand together. You can read our full report on the strike here.What was truly remarkable about this grassroots-organised strike was both the breadth and depth of participation from riders. At first it was a strike focused on London, with 90 areas of the metropolis identified on an Instagram post as having been ticked off the organiser's strike 'check list'. But on Friday, as momentum for the strike picked-up and word spread, more cities joined in. First Bristol and Liverpool, and later Glasgow and Brighton, with video footage showing a motorcade of at least 100 riders in the southern English coastal city. In terms of its effectiveness in disrupting the operations of the food delivery platforms, this strike must be right up there as one of the most powerful to-date in the gig economy, anywhere in the world. Videos of McDonald's bags piling up in restaurants circulated, as did reports of 'dark kitchens' being shutdown completely. No deliveries were going out at all on the famous Brick Lane in London's East End. Customers were tweeting that they couldn't order deliveries, while Deliveroo was showing a 'We'll be back to normal soon' message on its app. Deliveroo became so desperate that they encouraged their restaurant partners to call the police on picketing riders. The most indisputable evidence of the strike's power was the absolutely incredible offers the platforms were making to get riders back to work. As veteran London rider and IWGB union member Shaf Hussain demonstrated in a series of tweets, Uber Eats offered £71.01 for two deliveries over 5.9 miles, "enticing riders to make their entire day's pay in one hour," as Hussain put it. Hussain has been a rider for seven years and he said the platform was "offering astronomical amounts I've never seen". They can only be explained by an algorithmically-determined desperation to conjure-up supply to match demand, and thus break the strike. Indeed, as one striker pointed out, Uber Eats and Deliveroo are typically "paying as little as £2.80 to £2.90 for a 2-mile delivery". We have previously highlighted on this newsletter a piece from journalist Barney Davis from The Independent who shadowed Hussain around Central London in November as he worked for nine hours straight: he earned just over £50. Another from The Guardian did the same in September for 12 hours: the same rider earned a pitiful £40. All while serving £60 steaks to bankers.This poverty pay motivated Friday's historic industrial action, which was targeted at all the big restaurant food delivery platforms in the UK: Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Just Eat and Stuart Delivery (a Just Eat sub-contractor). A leaflet to promote the strike states: "This demonstration is about the appalling working conditions being imposed upon us. The cost of living globally is on a relentless rise, yet, astonishingly, our pay for work is on a continuous decline. Food delivery companies are exploiting workers mercilessly. We've been without any sort of wage adjustment for the task we complete for four long years. Our incentives have been stripped away; promotions are a thing of the past...Delivery charges for customers soar, whilst our remuneration dwindles."None of this is new, of course. As Fairwork point out in their 2023 annual report on the global platfom economy (published this week), "a global inflationary crisis...saw interest rates rise and the cost-of-living spiral. The former resulted in a tech financing
crash, with the increased costs of borrowing stopping
companies from pursuing risky ‘burn rates’ (i.e. lossmaking enterprise), and instead switching back to more
conservative financial decisions better equipped to
navigate these tempestuous financial winds." These "conservative financial decisions" included slashing driver pay while raising customer prices in order to improve their margins, "with workers often left with no choice but to
work longer hours and more intensely than ever before", Fairwork find. For riders in the UK, the deterioration in their conditions appears to have reached a tipping point, where they are willing to forego a day's pay to force the platforms to reconsider their barbaric pay rates. Whether the platforms will shift remains to be seen, but it is without question that they have been rattled by this action. When gig workers unite and fight, they can move mountains. Ben Wray, Gig Economy Project co-ordinator
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Gig Economy news round-up |
- BELGIUM TO WRITE STRIPPED-DOWN TEXT AFTER NO AGREEMENT ON PLATFORM WORK DIRECTIVE: A trilogue negotiation on Tuesday [30 January] between the Council of the EU, the European Parliament and European Commission failed to come to an agreement on the Platform Work Directive, with the Belgian Presidency now working on a new, stripped-down text. Member-states had agreed on their own watered-down proposal at a 26 January Council meeting, but EP negotiators said it was unacceptable, with Belgium now developing a much shorter text in a bid to find an acceptable compromise. Euractiv journalist Théo Bourgery-Gonse reports that the new text is set to only outline "shared principles" for a presumption of employment, rather than a specific proposal, leaving it up to individual countries in the EU to design their own specific criteria. The shared principles will cover four areas: that it must better working conditions, that it must be included in national law, that the final decision to determine employment status will be based on national definitions, and that there must be a way for platforms to rebut the presumption of employment. The algorithmic management part of the Directive will remain in the text. A trilogue meeting on Thursday [8 February] is likely to be decisive as to whether a deal will be struck at all, with the Council required to agree on a new, revised mandate the day before.
- DELIVERY HERO SELLS ITS STAKE IN DELIVEROO AT A BIG LOSS: The German multi-national Delivery Hero, which owns food delivery brands around the world such as Glovo, Foodora and FoodPanda, has sold its stake in British-food delivery platform Deliveroo for less than a third of the price it paid for the shares, adding to growing doubts about the company's financial position. The sale, which was set at a discount of 7% below Deliveroo's share price, sparked a sell-off in Delivery Hero's shares, which fell more than 25% in five days and is now at its lowest level ever. The sale of Delivery Hero's 4.5% holding in Deliveroo will raise a much needed £76.8 million for the beleaguered company, which said that the decision was made "in line with our commitment to maintaining disciplined capital allocation.” When Delivery Hero bought its stake in Deliveroo in 2021, CEO Niklas Östberg said he thought the shares "felt undervalued". Like all food delivery platforms, Delivery Hero has struggled with the new financial reality of higher interest rates and a demand from investors that the company gets on a pathway to profitability. In September, the company confirmed that it was in negotiatons to sell FoodPanda in its south-east Asian markets. In December, Delivery Hero closed tech hubs in Turkey and Taiwan, and cut 13 per cent of its staff at its headquarters in Berlin. Last week, a court in Spain suspended collection of a €64 million Glovo fine after the company said it was in an "extreme situation" financially, explaining that the fall in value of the stock of its parent firm Delivery Hero "puts at risk the contributions it can make to the company". Read more here.
- UBER FINED €10 MILLION FOR DRIVER PERSONAL DATA PRIVACY BREACHES: The Dutch data protection authority (DPA) imposed a €10 million fine on Uber on Wednesday [31 January]. The DPA found that Uber made drivers' personal data access requests excessively complex. The regulator also found that Uber's terms & conditions did not state how long they would keep hold of drivers' personal data or how the data was secured when sending to entities outside of the European Economic Area. The investigation came about after 170 French Uber drivers had lodged a complaint with the French data protection agency, which passed it on to their Dutch counterparts due to the fact that Uber's European headquarters is in that country. A spokesperson for the Silicon Valley gig economy giant responded to the fine by stating: "The Dutch data protection authority has acknowledged that Uber fixed the small number of 'low impact' issues raised by the drivers, while dismissing the vast majority of their claims as unfounded". Read more here.
- GLOVO FINED IN SPAIN FOR RIDER PERSONAL DATA ABUSES: The Spanish Data Protection Agency has fined Glovo, the country's largest food delivery platform, €550,000 for abusive data processing practises. Glovo carried out excessive surveillance on its riders and allowed anyone at the platform to access riders' personal data, even if they were in other countries, the regulator found. The investigation into Glovo, which began in 2020, was forwarded from the DPA's Italian counterparts. Three articles of European privacy law were deemed to have been violated: that only necessary personal data is collected, that no unjustified mass extraction of the data is carried out, and that the information is presented in a form which is accessible. The DPA also found that Glovo had not informed its workers when decisions about their work are made using automated algorithms, but has not fined the company for this as Glovo has since rectified the issue. Glovo is appealing the verdict and a spokesperson said: "Glovo is very committed, actively and responsibly, to compliance with data protection regulations, being a priority in its day-to-day work." Read more here.
- TAXIS AND VTCs STRIKE TOGETHER ACROSS FRANCE OVER MEDICAL TRANSPORT: In a rare joining of forces, traditional taxis and private hire (VTC) drivers took strike action together on Monday [29 January] in several French cities, blocking motorways through 'snail operations'. The strike, which adds to those carried out by French farmers on the motorways in recent weeks, is over the transport of people to hospitals who are not covered by ambulances. For drivers working in rural areas, this medical transport is one of their main sources of income. The drivers want the withdrawal of a new agreement with the National Health Insurance Fund (Cnam), which was due to enter into force on Thursday [1 February]. 'FranceTVInfo' reports that "several hundred" taxis blocked the ring roads surrounding Bordeaux, with 800 taking action in Marseille, and further strikes in Toulon, Lyon, Lille, Montpellier, Nîmes, Nice, Grenoble, Tours and Cannes reported. Ben Ali Brahim, general secretary of the INV union which organises Uber drivers, tweeted a video of Uber cars lined up in Lille together about to begin their 'slow march'. Read more here.
Have we missed something important? You can help keep us informed by sending information to GEP@BraveNewEurope.com. |
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The Wheel of MisfortunePiero Valmassoi writes in Alter Echos about the death of rider Sultan Zadran in Brussels and the wider health & safety issues facing couriers in the Belgian capital (in French).
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- The fourth transnational alternatives to Uberisation forum, organised by The Left group in the European Parliament, will be held February 21-22, in Brussels, Belgium. Full details TBC.- The European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) will host a conference on Future of work: rethinking workers' rights in the digital age, 21-22 February, in Brussels, Belgium. Click here for full details and to register (limited places available).- The WE-TRANSFORM final conference will be a hybrid event held in Brussels on 5 March. Click here for full details and to regiser.
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The Gig Economy Project is a media network for gig workers and we welcome contributions from workers, writers, academics, activists - anyone who wants to stand up for workers' rights in the gig economy.
If you would like to write for the site, discuss arranging an interview with GEP, or simply have information about developments in the gig economy in Europe you think we should be aware of, get in touch.
Contact project co-ordinator Ben Wray at GEP@BraveNewEurope.com or send a direct message to the Twitter: @project_gig.
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