We usually focus our analysis on one story in the newsletter but there's a few things that have caught our attention in recent weeks:
Swiss solutions
The Swiss union Syndicom has deployed a highly creative, and effective, means of reaching food delivery couriers. They teamed up with a pro-union restaurant in Zurich to turn their pizza place into an organising hub.
The restaurant was registered onto Uber Eats' app and members of Syndicom bombarded it with orders for two days. When the couriers arrived at the restaurant to pick-up the delivery, they were given information about their rights and how to get involved in the union. Syndicom have produced an excellent, short video about the initiative.
Also in Switzerland, there was a very important ruling of the Federal Administrative Court on 9 July. The court found that Uber Eats riders should be considered a provider of postal services because the company no longer only delivers restaurant food, they also have a grocery delivery wing that delivers household items, like postal workers.
This is very important because postal workers are regulated differently and, in many countries, subject to a different set of sectoral collective agreements. Having riders regulated as postal workers is something that has been pushed for by German trade unions and Works' Councils, for instance. The Swiss court ruling could set a precedent for other countries.
France: heatwave break and pay rise
A wage rise for food delivery couriers in France. The French Platform Employment Authority (ARPE), a government-organised arbitration process, had previously seen an agreement signed for a 'guaranteed minimum income' of €11.75 gross in 2023. Now it's rising to €19, a substantial increase but one that has been met by significant scepticism by many trade unions and activists in France.
The agreement has been signed by Unión Independants and the self-employed association FNAE, but many unions on the ARPE have refused to sign. The context here is important: as we reported in this newsletter in May, real wage rates fell 31.7% at Uber Eats and 25.2% at Deliveroo in France from 2021 to 2025, despite the guaranteed minimum income. “In all the delivery driver collectives we’ve spoken with, in Paris, Rennes, and Nantes, we’ve never seen the previous guarantee applied,” Jonathan L’Utile Chevallier, project coordinator at the Maison des Livreurs (Delivery Drivers’ House) in Bordeaux, told 'Le Monde'.
Chevallier told the newspaper that he believed the platforms and the government are trying to put on "a good show" before the transposition of the EU Platform Work Directive. Ludovic Rioux of the CGT union, which is represented on the ARPE, agreed, arguing that: “This kind of agreement will be used by the government to claim that delivery drivers don’t need the same rights as other workers.” Deliveroo said that the agreement "restores credibility to social dialogue", but many unions don't seem to agree.
One more important development from France: Uber Eats and Deliveroo have both announced that they will establish heat breaks, after weeks of heat waves in France. But the announcement has only generated more division, because the platforms will not pay the workers for the time they are on the break. Uber Eats said that the heat breaks were an attempt "to strike a balance between the overriding priority of delivery drivers' safety and limiting the impact on revenue". Rioux responded by saying that heat breaks without income would only make "these vulnerable workers even more vulnerable".
What's clear is that nothing has been resolved politically by these changes: all eyes on Macron's pro-platform government to see what sort of transposition they come forward with by December.
Malta delivery collective agreement
A collective agreement for food delivery couriers has been finalised in Malta between the General Workers' Union (GWU) and the Malta Delivery Fleet Operators Association (MDFOA). In Malta, all couriers are hired via sub-contractors, and the vast majority of sub-contractors - which mainly work with the platforms Bolt and Wolt - are members of the MDFOA.
What is particularly interesting about this collective agreement is that it makes it automatic for riders who are covered by it to be a member of the union. This is an attempt to get round the persistent problem the GWU has had with union retention, because the majority of workers in the sector are migrants who are in Malta on temporary work visas, and so typically only stay for a few years each. This agreement solves the retention problem by making it automatic, and is perhaps a model that other unions may wish to look at.
Ben Wray, Gig Economy Project co-ordinator |
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Gig Economy news round-up |
PYSZNE (JUST EAT) TO END DIRECT EMPLOYMENT IN POLAND: Pyszne, the Polish brand of Just Eat, is set to fire its food delivery couriers and re-hire them via sub-contractors. The company's 'Scoober' service, where riders work directly for the company, is to be shutdown by August. The union Konfedracja Pracy, which organises Just Eat riders, released a statement to members saying that it had been informed of management of the planned changes and will be requesting an urgent meeting with the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy. The union said that working for sub-contractors would mean riders would start only being paid for deliveries, not their whole time at work, and that sub-contractors also charge additional fees to couriers, further reducing their earnings. Konfedracja Pracy added that Pyszne had assured them that it audits all sub-contractors but that "the risk remains". A meeting of all union members is to be held on Friday 17 July to discuss the changes. Just Eat has moved away from direct employment across Europe over the last few years, with the company moving to a sub-contractor model in much of its German operations and entirely to a 'freelance' model in Austria last year. NEW RIDERS HAVE ACCIDENTS 5 TIMES A YEAR, NEW STUDY FINDS: A new German study has found that food delivery couriers with less than 12 months experience have on average five road accidents a year. The shocking finding was described as "unacceptable" by Manfred Wirsch, President of the German Road Safety Council (DVR), which commissioned the study from the Technical University of Dresden. The researchers found that the average number of road accidents for all riders was 0.9 per year, but that this rose to five when the riders were new to the job. Around half of all accidents happened in the rush hour period between 6-9pm. With 298 accidents per thousand employees, the accident rate was significantly higher than comparable figures for other sectors where workers work frequently on the roads. For example, postal workers had 34 accidents per thousand employees. Half of all accidents led to injuries for the rider. The data also provided the first in-depth survey of who works as a food delivery courier in Europe's largest country, with 75 per cent being migrants, the most common countries being India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Turkey, and Syria. The researchers found that the use of opaque sub-contracting structures in Germany was a problem for ensuring occupational health and safety, arguing that "employer responsibility must be clearly assigned". The authors called for mandatory bad weather rules, including additional time buffers and weather-adjusted routes. Read the report here and access the full study here. UBER ON VERGE OF DELIVERY HERO TAKEOVER: A deal for Uber to buy food delivery multi-national Delivery Hero could be struck as soon as this week, Bloomberg reports. A previous takeover bid last month was knocked back, but Uber has already built a majority stake of 36.8% in the German headquartered company, which owns over 60 brands around the world including Foodora and Glovo in Europe. Bloomberg sources said any deal could still fall apart as deliberations are ongoing. Any deal is likely to come under regulatory scrutiny in the European Union and elsewhere on the basis of a potential breach of anti-monopoly regulations. Tech investment firm Prosus, which was only permitted by the European Commission to buy Just Eat last year on the basis that it sold down its majority stake in Delivery Hero, was given more time by the Commission last month to sell its stake. It was reported that Prosus would use the breathing space to try to expand its position in Delivery Hero temporarily to block an Uber takeover. Uber Eats' plans to expand into six new European countries in 2026 have been put on hold due to the takeover bid, the FT has reported, as Uber tries to stay within anti-trust rules. However, Uber Eats already competes with Delivery Hero in numerous European markets. Read more here. UNIONS AND MANAGEMENT IN TALKS IN LUXEMBOURG AFTER WOLT STRIKE: Talks have taken place between worker representatives and the management of Wolt food delivery platform after a major strike in June. At least 163 riders took action after pay was slashed by up to 40%. Wolt, a Finnish-headquartered food delivery platform which was bought by American company DoorDash in 2022, only launched in Luxembourg in 2024. One rider, Tom, said that he could previously earn between €3500-4000 gross per month, but since the beginning of 2026 he could only earn €2700 a month gross. Wolt riders in Luxembourg work on a freelance basis and it is one of the most expensive places to live in Europe. Following the strike, Wolt agreed to a negotiation table with the unions, saying they had "taken note of the concerns of a group of courier partners". The Déi Lénk party responded to the strike by saying it was "high time to finally give these employees legal protection." Read more here. UNION CALLS FOR INCOMING UK PRIME MINISTER TO HALT ROBO-TAXI TRIALS: The App Drivers and Couriers Union (ADCU) has called for Andy Burnham, likely next prime minister of the UK, to stop plans for robo-taxi trials in London, arguing that the autonomous vehicles are "nowhere near ready" and posed a risk to public safety. ADCU called for independent safety assessments to be conducted on the vehicles, as well as economic impact studies and meaningful public consultation. “The Government should not allow Londoners to become guinea pigs for unproven technology," Cristina-Georgiana Ioanitescu, General Secretary of ADCU, said. "We are nowhere near ready for driverless taxis on London’s streets.” Uber and Wayve are set to trial the robotaxis after the passing of the Autonomous Vehicles Act, but Waymo recently had to recall 3,900 AVs in the US after 13 drove into construction zones. Burnham is the only candidate to replace outgoing UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and Ioanitescu called for one of his first moves being to announce a pause on AV trials. The union also wants a legally enforceable 'Just Transition' to be established to protect hundreds of thousands of private hire drivers in the UK from the impact of automation. 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. |
Digital Platform Observatory |
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Cory Doctorow on the "flexibility" myth in the gig economy. |
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The Democracy at Work substack on the rider co-operatives which keep going when venture-capital backed platforms collapse. |
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Contact project co-ordinator Ben Wray at GEP@BraveNewEurope.com with news, events, ideas, feedback...whatever you think might be useful.
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