There is a line from the mob film 'Goodfellas' which suddenly came to mind recently. Henry Hill, gangster turned police informant, says that the mafia exists because it provides "protection for the kinds of guys who can't go to the cops". The food delivery industry is a bit like that: what they offer is work for the kinds of workers who can't go to the cops.
This came to mind whilst watching 'The courier driver business', a shocking new DW documentary about the food delivery industry in Berlin. For those who are unaware, in Germany riders are hired on an employment basis, but Wolt, Uber Eats and (increasingly) Lieferando operate via sub-contractors, many of whom act exactly like gangsters because that is what they are. Charging workers to access an employment contract; paying workers cash-in-hand and telling them that their envelope is "thin" because they "don't work enough"; paying them based on deliveries rather than their time; refusing to pay riders their wages and then disappearing off the face of the earth: that's just a few of the cases of criminality that this documentary reveals.
They follow the story of one rider, Shiwani Sharma, who has taken Wolt to court for unpaid wages. Wolt states in court that Sharma was not hired by them, she was instead hired by a company called 'IMOQX GmbH', which Wolt had entered into a contract with. Sharma had never heard of IMOQX GmbH, but the film makers managed to track down the person who supposedly signed the contract with Wolt at IMOQX GmbH's end, a man named Jaroslaw in Poland, who was registered as the firm's managing director. As it turned out, Jaroslaw didn't have a clue about the enterprise he was supposed to rule over: it was a case of stolen identity, with Jaroslaw's name used to disguise the real beneficiaries of the shell company. Despite the blatant criminality, Sharma lost her case against Wolt for unpaid wages at the labour court.
The most brutal story in the documentary is when a group of riders organise a strike at Uber Eats. A goon from one of the sub-contractors working with Uber Eats sends an audio message to the riders: "Guys, if someone stops you in the street, just show me the face. If he doesn't know what Mafia is, we will show him what Mafia is. Take a photo of him and I will come with my boys and we will fuck him."
Later, one of the striking riders was beat so badly that he ended up in hospital. Another of the striking riders was fired, with an audio message from the goon stating: "You're supporting this, what do you call it, protest. Please stop working. We will send you the termination." The following day, the rider couldn't log into the Uber Eats app: evidence of the platform and the goons working hand-in-glove.
Germany, of course, is by no means unique in the endemic criminality of its food delivery industry. In many European countries it takes the form of undocumented migrants 'sub-letting' an account. But whether it is illegal sub-letting, illegal sub-contracting or simply illegal bogus self-employment, criminality is never far from the surface. What is interesting is that there is an increasing tendency of governments, prosecutors and activists to go after the platforms on the basis of being at the top of a criminal operation, and with some success.
In Spain, Uber Eats has just become the last major food delivery platform to fall into line with the 'Rider Law', which established a legal presumption of employment in the food delivery sector in 2021. But both Uber Eats and Glovo refused to comply with the law for years despite hundreds of millions in fines, until the government in 2022 introduced the right to take criminal sanctions against company executives for bogus self-employment.
In the case of Glovo, the CEO Oscar Pierre agreed to move to an employment model the day before he was due to appear in court facing criminal charges from the Labour Inspectorate. Uber Eats only shifted direction after they too were threatened with criminal prosecutions.
In Italy, the Milan Public Prosecutor's office has taken partial judicial control of Glovo and Deliveroo in an attempt to intervene directly in these platforms' operations with the explicit aim of tackling illegal labour practices.
In France, campaigners are pursuing a "human trafficking" charge against Uber Eats and Deliveroo, following Deliveroo France executives receiving suspended prison sentences and fines in 2022 for "concealed work".
Ask anyone who has led a specialist police unit dealing with criminal gangs and they will tell you that if you want to destroy a mafia-type structure, you don't focus on taking down the goons who can be easily replaced, whether that be the sub-contractors or the sub-letters. And you certainly don't waste your time harassing the guys on the street peddling the goods, the ones right at the bottom of the pyramid who are exploited and then disposed of whenever the king-pins want. Instead, you target the infrastructure which sustains the mafia bosses, dismantling the operation from the top down.
It is almost four years since the Uber Files scandal. The criminality exposed by the leaks of whistleblower Mark MacGann has been forgotten all too quickly.
“Sometimes we have problems because, well, we’re just fucking illegal,” said Nairi Hourdajian, then head of Uber’s global communications. Another executive responded: "We have officially become pirates".
The piracy never ended. Of course, we now live in a time when the US President gloats about his navy's piracy: legal norms are being thrown out the window left, right and centre. It seems like laws are only for the poor these days. That's what we need to fight to change: holding the delivery mafias to account is not a bad place to start.
Ben Wray, Gig Economy Project co-ordinator |
|
Gig Economy news round-up |
LIEFERANDO RIDERS TO MARCH ON GERMAN ECONOMY MINISTRY ON 20 MAY: Food delivery couriers will march to the German economy ministry building on 20 May to demand "direct employment now!" The protest, organised by the Lieferando Workers' Collective (LWC) and the Food, Beverages and Catering Union (NGG), comes as the German government continues to develop its proposal for the transposition of the EU Platform Work Directive, with a key issue of contention being what laws are introduced on the use of sub-contractors by platforms. LWC and NGG are calling on the government to prohibit sub-contracting in the platform economy all together, following the example of the German meat industry. "We couriers from Lieferando, Wolt, UberEats and co want legal work," Rodrigo, a rider from LWC Nordbayern, said. "The platforms outsource and force us to work indirectly for criminal, sham subcontractors. Only a direct employment mandate can prevent this!" The protest will begin at 2pm at Pariser Platz. The Gig Economy Project understands that the German government is considering a proposal which would limit platforms to using just one sub-contractor. Read more here. UNDER FIRE DELIVERY HERO CEO TO STEP DOWN: Delivery Hero founder and CEO Niklas Östberg has announced that he will step down by March next year. Östberg has been under pressure from investors for some time over the multinational food delivery company's performance. Hedge fund Aspex Management, which called for Östberg to be ousted in March, increased its stake in Delivery Hero to 15% this week, making it the second-largest stakeholder in the company. Delivery Hero's largest shareholder, tech firm Prosus, is the owner of rival Just Eat and has to reduce its stake in Delivery Hero by September to comply with EU antitrust requirements. “This is the right moment to begin handing the company over to its next chapter,” Östberg said. Delivery Hero, which is headquartered in Berlin, owns brands across the world including Glovo and Foodora in Europe. The company was fined €329 million in June last year by the European Commission for operating a cartel-like structure with Glovo before it purchased the company. Read more here. WAYMO RECALLS THOUSANDS OF ROBOTAXIS OVER SAFETY FEARS: Autonomous vehicles maker Waymo is recalling thousands of its robotaxis, after one vehicle drove into a flooded area and was swept into a creek. The incident occurred in San Antonio, Texas on 20 May, and led Waymo to shutdown all operations in the city, saying it will resume the service when the software is fixed. The recall affects 3,800 vehicles using the company's fifth and sixth-generation automated driving systems. Jack Stilgoe, professor of science and technology policy at University College London, told the BBC that self-driving vehicles had limits on where and when they can be operated safely. "We often see these limits only when something goes wrong," Stilgoe said. In December, a power outage in San Francisco led Waymos operating in the city to stop working. Waymo plans to roll-out its first commercial self-driving car in Europe in London in September. Read more here. GLOVO AGREES WITH UNIONS TO REDUCE LAY-OFFS: Spanish food delivery platform Glovo has agreed to reduce the number of riders it is going to fire to 436, about 300 less than it had originally planned, after negotiations with union representatives. The company, which is believed to employ around 11,000 riders, announced last month that it planned to fire over 700 riders across 60 cities in the Southern European country. The CCOO union, which has majority representation in the company, responded by holding the first national strike in the company from 24-26th April. The agreement also includes that riders made redundant will receive compensation for 37 days per year worked, including for years when they worked on a (bogus) self-employed basis. The disciplinary regime used by the company, and which has been denounced by CCOO as illegal, will also be reviewed. Glovo began employing all of its riders last July after years of refusing to comply with the Spanish Government Rider Law, which established a general presumption of employment in the food delivery sector in 2021. Read more here. UBER EATS "ON THE OFFENSIVE" IN EUROPE: Uber told its investors on a Q1 earnings call that its food delivery section was "on the offensive" in Europe, as the company attempts to beat off competition. Balaji Krishnamurthy, Uber's Chief Financial Officer, told investors that the company was "seeing an incremental level of competitive intensity from both DoorDash and Prosus as they have expanded into the [European] market" but that Uber Eats had "held our own quite well". DoorDash, the American food delivery platform, has bought Deliveroo and Wolt in recent years, while tech firm Prosus bought Just Eat last year and remains a major investor in Delivery Hero. Krishnamurthy added that Uber Eats was not just "defending our core positions" but was also "on the offensive in the market". Uber Eats announced earlier this year that it was expanding into seven new European countries, with the company launching in Finland on the day of the earnings call [6 May]. Uber's Q1 results saw revenue rise to $13.2 billion, slightly below market forecasts. The offensive comes as Miki Kuusi, CEO of Deliveroo, told 'The Times' that the British-headquartered company had “been scrambling to get enough riders on the streets” due to a rise in orders recently, the fastest growth in orders the company had seen since 2022. Uber and the Spanish bank Santander also announced a financing deal of up to €1 billion to support the intermediary companies which Uber's ridehail operation works with in key markets like Germany and Spain. 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. |
|
|
|
The Scottish elections were held one week ago. The Workers' Observatory produced a five-part series looking at the election issues from a gig workers' perspective. |
|
|
|
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. |
|
|
