We have been following the heatwave around Europe: or maybe the heatwave has been following us. We first went to Madrid 11 days ago, where it was 35°. On Wednesday [24 June] we were in Brussels, where it reached 38°. Then to Berlin, which peaked at 41° on Sunday. As we write this from Prague, temperatures have dipped from a high of 40°, but remain in the thirties.
Our trip to four European capitals has been sweaty and somewhat uncomfortable (the S-Bahn in Berlin felt like a sauna). But that is nothing compared to the experience of food delivery couriers. With few hiding places from the glare of the sun, riders have continued to plough the streets in every city we have been to over the past week and a half, despite the significant risks of dizziness, sunburn and heatstroke.
This is nothing new. We have written about it in previous heatwaves. What is worth reflecting on this time is that, in the two cities we have met and interviewed riders this past week - in Madrid and in Berlin - these workers are, at least in theory, employees. The ‘freelance’ model has been all but eradicated in Spain and Germany, but still riders remain severely exposed to the elements, and indeed some of them have no more protection from the risks of extreme weather than they did when they were self-employed.
Why? Because they are hired via sub-contractors, companies which stay safely in the shade, hidden from the heat of media or government scrutiny. These firms use their anonymity to breach labour laws left, right and centre.
In Madrid, we meet Andreas, a courier for a Glovo sub-contractor. Andreas is surprised when we ask him about whether his sub-contractor has a protocol for extreme heat. They have never told him to stop working due to extreme weather, despite the Spanish Government tightening its rules on this in recent months. Sometimes he is given back-to-back shifts, meaning he can be exposed to the sun for “six hours straight”.
What is interesting is that Andreas’ flat-mate, Carlos, is also a rider for Glovo, but he works for the company directly. Both Andreas and Carlos use the Glovo app, but whereas Carlos has access to all of the features on the app, Andreas’ interface is more limited. Carlos shows us the information he has in the app relating to health and safety, including what to do in the case of extreme weather. None of this information is available for Andreas.
This unevenness in protection between directly hired riders and those hired via sub-contractors is apparent in Berlin as well. We meet a group of riders who are connected to the Lieferando Workers’ Collective, which are the majority representatives on the Berlin Lieferando Works’ Council. The riders who are represented by the Works’ Council are hired directly, and they have a list of complaints about how Lieferando is handling the extreme heat which is as long as an arm. The most important of these is that ‘the hubs’, which are supposed to be available for riders to take breaks at and get chilled drinks, are closed at the weekends and after 6pm, which are the peak times for deliveries. We asked Lieferando about this fault in their “Severe Weather Process”, but they did not respond.
Nonetheless, for directly hired riders at Lieferando, there is at least a written down set of rules for managing extreme heat, even if it is not properly applied. Lieferando stopped operations all together on Sunday [28 June] at 12 noon when the temperature was 35° and heading for 41°, under pressure from the Works’ Council (once again showing the practical importance of strong worker organisation to health and safety). Directly employed riders were paid for these hours. But do all of Lieferando’s sub-contractors pay their riders when the company’s operations stop? And do they all have a protocol in place for extreme heat?
Lieferando did not reply to these questions either, but the sad reality of Germany’s sub-contracting laws is that they are under no legal obligation to know what the sub-contractor is doing, if anything. The harsh reality is that many of the sub-contractors used by food delivery platforms in Germany are little more than petty criminals.
We speak to Sumit, an Indian migrant, who has recently stopped working for a Wolt sub-contractor in Berlin. Sumit had to pay €500 to access the work, which is apparently the norm at Wolt sub-contractors. He was hired with an employment contract for 10 hours a week, but this was just a figment for tax authorities. In reality he worked up to 12 hours a day, and was paid cash-in-hand on a piece rate basis. The sub-contractor would take 30% of everything Sumit earned while working via Wolt’s app. He had no accident insurance, he had to buy his own bike and his sub-contractor never took any interest in his health nor safety.
“I could have stopped working because of the heat if I wanted to, but I wouldn’t get paid, because we are only paid for the deliveries we make,” Sumit explains.
Wolt hires very few riders directly in Berlin, and Uber Eats does not hire any directly: they are all hired via subcontractors operating with similar illegal methods as Sumit’s former ‘employer’. What’s the chances that any of them had an extreme heat protocol in place when temperatures reached 41° in Berlin?
We have highlighted these mafia operators before in this newsletter. There is now well documented evidence that this is by no means one or two bad apples; it is a systematic operation to keep labour costs at least as low as with the ‘freelance’ model by hiring workers via sub-contractors that are ready and willing to break the law.
The risk is that what is happening in Germany and Spain becomes the new normal across Europe once the Platform Work Directive is transposed, and we move wholesale from bogus self-employment to its successor: “bogus employment”, where workers are formally hired on an employment basis but in practise have none of the protections which employment status are supposed to bring.
In Germany, Works’ Councils and unions are advocating for a direct employment mandate when the platform work directive is transposed. If politicians don’t want riders collapsing in a heap during the many heatwaves that are surely to come, they should take seriously the risk of passing legislation that does little more than enable bogus employment.
Ben Wray, Gig Economy Project co-ordinator
