Picking up on the same theme as last week's newsletter, we have some new evidence of the endemic criminality in the food delivery industry to bring you, this time from France.
One of the major challenges in researching food delivery is to get reliable numbers on how many riders are undocumented, since they are not likely to appear in the data using traditional sampling methods, nor from data taken directly from the platforms because undocumented riders are working through the account of someone else (a practise known as 'sub-letting').
The Santé-Course research project has gotten round this problem by using a "direct canvassing protocol", i.e. going directly to the places where riders congregate, most importantly outside restaurants that they pick up food from, and surveying workers there. Thus, this is one of the first pieces of reliable quantitative research into the number of riders who are working 'sans-papiers'. What are the results?
In Paris, 519 riders were surveyed, and 485 in Bourdeaux. Almost two-thirds of the riders were undocumented, 64.4%. This provides academic rigour to what we have been told anecdotally, that - at least in major urban centres - the majority of riders are undocumented.
Furthermore, 73.5% of riders work illegally via rented accounts, even more than the number of riders who are undocumented. On average, the 'account tenants' pay €528 per month to the 'account owner', showing the extent to which riders suffer from a double exploitation from their sub-letter and the platform. All of this makes a mockery of the claims of the platforms that they have a "zero tolerance" approach to illegal work and account renting: the truth is that illegal working makes up the back-bone of the food delivery operation.
The research was not just about whether riders are undocumented, it contains a treasure-trove of interesting data. Just to pick out a few other things: riders earn €5.83 gross per hour (less than half the minimum wage) and €4.55 gross per delivery; just 2% of riders work for more than one platform (so much for 'multi-apping'); 91% earn the majority of their income from deliveries (so much for it being a part-time gig); 98.7% of riders are migrants; 42.5% have gone at least one day without food in the last 12 months; a typical working week is 63 hours on average; and 58.7% of riders have had at least one work-related accident.
This is a data horror show, but we have in fact some more supplemental data for you which puts this information into a broader context. As part of France's institutional social dialogue system in the platform economy called ARPE, the platforms provide data on worker earnings and other things to ARPE. The latest data for the food delivery sector has just been published, and is extremely revealing.
As the graph above shows, inflation-adjusted gross hourly income (excluding waiting time) has collapsed in the past four years, falling by 31.7% at Uber Eats, 30.9% at Stuart Delivery and 25.2% at Deliveroo. Even in nominal terms (i.e. excluding inflation), gross hourly income is down 22.4% at Uber Eats, 21.5% at Stuart Delivery and 15% at Deliveroo. This is not a wage cut: it is wage destruction. It's only possible because these platforms are perfectly well aware that their operation is wholly reliant on a under-class of workers who have no rights and nowhere else to turn for work. Modern-day slavery is not an exaggeration.
This data should be a humiliation for French President Emmanuel Macron. Remember, the ARPE is a body that was created by Macron's government in 2022 to prove that it is possible to have social dialogue and improve working conditions in the gig economy without employment protections. Macron led the resistance in the European Council to a legal presumption of employment in the Platform Work Directive, exactly on the basis that France has a workable alternative model that it wants to protect.
The combination of the Santé-Course data and ARPE data should be enough to put that argument to bed: under Macron's system, the delivery mafias have run wild, and the brutal consequences for workers are there for all to see.
Ben Wray, Gig Economy Project co-ordinator |
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Gig Economy news round-up |
ITALIAN GOVERNMENT PUBLISHES DECREE ON PLATFORM WORK: The Italian Government has published the 1 May Decree, which has to be adopted within 60 days and includes key articles relating to the transposition of the EU Platform Work Directive. The Decree establishes a general legal presumption of employment in the platform economy based on "indications of control or external direction", including "through algorithmic management". The Decree also establishes information obligations on platforms relating to automated and algorithmic systems, as well as the right of platform workers to a human review of automated decisions. New rules on platforms relating to undeclared work are also included, with platforms required to create a single digital tax code for each worker on the platform and with new fines on account sharing. Platforms must also keep all records on each worker on their platform for a minimum of five years and make them available to the competent authorities. Read more here. LIEFERANDO RIDERS DEMAND DIRECT EMPLOYMENT IN BERLIN PROTEST: Lieferando (Just Eat) riders marched to the German Government's Economy Ministry in Berlin on Wednesday [20 May], calling on the government to introduce a direct employment mandate in the platform economy. The protest came as Lieferando announced plans to cut 100 more staff in the company's IT department in Berlin. Last year, Lieferando fired 2,000 riders and moved to a sub-contracting model in some cities. "More and more riders are employed in completely confusing subcontracting constructions - that means uncertain contracts, poor working conditions and uncertainty about who the responsibility lies with," said Anja Piel from the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB), which also joined the protest. The NGG union and the Lieferando Workers' Collective have called on the German government to introduce a direct employment mandate when transposing the Platform Work Directive, following the example of the German meat industry which has prohibited sub-contracting. "We need binding rules now," Mark Baumeister, NGG Head of Hospitality and a rider, said. "Anyone who does business in this country must also employ decently in this country - everything else is organised irresponsibility." Read more here. FRENCH UNION DEMANDS UBER EATS AND DELIVEROO STOP "ABUSIVE" ROBO-FIRINGS: Union-Indépendants, the section of the CFDT union which represents food delivery couriers, sent a formal legal notice to Uber Eats and Deliveroo on 11 May regarding the “abusive” disconnection of riders accounts on the platform. Union-Indépendants stated in a press release that they had noticed a major increase in account suspensions and de-activations since September last year, with most relating to account sharing. The union said that most workers who had been 'robo-fired' were not shown the evidence justifying the decision. “This situation highlights a structural information asymmetry,” the union said. “The precise rules governing deactivation decisions remain largely opaque, the data used is not accessible to workers, and the mechanisms for contesting these decisions appear insufficient, or even ineffective.” Union-Indépendants has organised a support team to help riders affected by account deactivations, with more than 2,800 riders having received help through the program. RIDEHAIL DRIVERS IN FRANCE SEE PAY FALL AGAIN: New data released by the French Government's social dialogue body for the platform economy shows that the pay of Uber and Bolt ridehail drivers fell in 2025 for the third year running. The ARPE publishes data each year, received directly from the platforms, on ridehail driver earnings. The data for 2025 shows that gross pay per trip at Uber fell from an average of €18.30 in 2023, to €17.50 in 2024 and €17.30 in 2025. At Bolt gross pay per trip fell from €18 in 2023, to €16.50 in 2024 and €15.90 in 2026. Adjusted for inflation, gross pay per hour (excluding waiting time) had fallen at Uber by 9% since 2021 and at Bolt by 11%. Falling pay rates have been combined with drivers working longer hours on average as they seek to earn enough to get by. ARPE was established to give self-employed platform workers in the food delivery and ridehail sectors a collective voice at the negotiating table with the platforms, with worker representatives elected directly by workers every few years. Through ARPE, platforms have been required to introduce a minimum pay per trip, a minimum pay per kilometre and a minimum pay per hour of activity (excluding waiting time), but it has not stopped driver incomes from slumping. Read more here. UBER BECOMES DELIVERY HERO'S LARGEST SHAREHOLDER: Uber has increased its stake in German multi-national Delivery Hero, and has not ruled out buying the company outright. Uber, which now owns 19.5% of Delivery Hero shares, said in a company filing on Monday [18 May] that it had no immediate plans to takeover the company. Delivery Hero, which owns 60 food delivery brands worldwide including Glovo, Foodora and E-Food, is a major competitor of Uber Eats in Europe and elsewhere, raising questions over whether the company's majority stake falls foul of EU competition laws. Uber Eats has been buying shares from Prosus, the Dutch tech firm which took over Just Eat last year on the condition from the European Commission that it sold down its majority stake in Delivery Hero within the space of 12 months. The increase in Uber's stake comes just a week after Delivery Hero's CEO, Niklas Östberg, announced he would be stepping down, having come under significant pressure to do so from activist investors. Read more here.
Have we missed something important? You can help keep us informed about what's going in the gig economy in Europe by e-mailing GEP@BraveNewEurope.com. |
GEP video: The Delivery Mafias |
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If this report is accurate, this would be somewhere between 5-10 million people on strike in India, surely the largest gig economy strike in history. |
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P-Will Cost Action is organising a conference in Prague on 30 June titled 'Mapping the Transformation: Intersectional Analysis of Platform Work and the Shifting Labor Landscape'. It is a hybrid event. Click here for details. |
Contact project co-ordinator Ben Wray at GEP@BraveNewEurope.com with news, events, ideas, feedback...whatever you think might be useful.
And if you like the Gig Economy Project newsletter, why not get your friends and colleagues to subscribe? Here's the link. |
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