Until recently, gig economy giants such as Uber and Deliveroo did not have to worry about organised workers. That was almost by design: riders and drivers work alone, at strange hours, so the chances of workers suddenly gaining mass bargaining power seemed nil. That changed in 2016, when those workers started going on wildcat strikes around Europe and the US.
Zero hours contracts, no benefits and gradual decreases in the money earned have always made working for Uber or Deliveroo a precarious business. Now, recent changes to the way those apps operate have caused Uber drivers and couriers for UberEATS and Deliveroo to take action in a more forceful fashion.
This week, for the first time, couriers and drivers for Uber organised and acted together. The strike coincided with a fast-food workers’ industrial action, as workers from McDonald’s, TGI Fridays, and Wetherspoons went on strike in seven cities in the UK. In London, members of the Independent Workers of Great Britain, together with riders and couriers organised by Industrial Workers of the World, stormed the Uber headquarters in Aldgate twice, demanding £5 per delivery, and £1 for every additional mile travelled. That would be a big change. Currently, UberEATS couriers are paid £1.10 for every pick-up, £1.40 for every drop-off and a per mike fee of £1.50 – adding up to a total of £4.
“What’s significant about these strikes is that it is workers building up their associational power,” says Nick Srnicek, the author of Platform Capitalism, a book about technology and economics, and a lecturer in digital humanities at King’s College London. “That’s the power that arises from collectively organising together, not just within a single workplace, but across different businesses.” For UberEATS drivers, coordinating with McDonald’s workers was significant because McDonald’s generates a large amount of business for UberEATS, and shows that problems being felt within the gig economy are being felt outside of it too.
For Uber drivers, the primary concern now is random deactivation, with drivers claiming they are stripped of their accounts with a vague explanation coming days or weeks after. James Farrar, a claimant against Uber in a landmark employment tribunal case in 2016, explains he has recently heard from many experienced drivers who claim their their accounts are being deactivated with no warning. Some of those accounts were reinstated a few days later, protestors claim. Several others at the protest said similar things had happened to people they knew.
Deactivating an account, however, requires Uber to report the driver to Transport for London (TfL) under updated terms and conditions. According to Farrar this is often the first time that many drivers hear of the incidents. This lack of communication, the protests claim, is hurting their ability to make a living. “There’s a backlog for three weeks, waiting for a committee of managers to come and review each case,” he adds. “Early last year, Uber made a driver appeals panel, made of our peers, but every time we try to access them, they tell us no appeal is possible on these cases.”
Uber lost its license after review from TfL earlier this year, although the Westminster Magistrates Court later granted a probationary license. Workers say that the ruling hasn’t made their lives better – instead, they feel as though there’s another level of bureaucracy to deal with in their fight for better conditions, especially as TfL refuses to recognise their union.
Read more: What is the gig economy and why is it so controversial?
Those small changes add up to a lot for drivers. “The cars we have invested in, the licensing and upkeep, the special insurance we have to get, the fuel – the depreciation every week because of the amount of mileage we do in our business,” says Asad, who drives for Uber and has been speaking to several other drivers recently, particularly about the effects of the rating system on driver performance. “We are supposed to be self employed, but we’re heavily controlled.”
Then there’s UberEATS. Uber’s food delivery branch recently changed its minimum delivery payout, which used to be around £4.50, and is now £2.62. Changes to delivery pricing have put pressure on couriers to work faster.
“In the last few weeks, we’ve seen these changes happen,” says Hasan, who couriers for UberEATS and Deliveroo. “We logged in, and we used to get £4 an hour, and now we get £3.50.” UberEATS also has a Boost function, which should lead to higher payment during busy periods. But it hasn’t quite worked out that way. The flexibility of the platform means that couriers can choose to work at times when demand – and pay – is at its highest. But restrictions on when couriers can make more money through Boost – a complication also created by surge pricing for Uber taxi drivers – is, some argue, making gig economy workers less and not more free. When it announced the change, Uber said the update to its Boost feature also necessitated a change in its fare structure.
An UberEATS spokesperson said that to “provide couriers with confidence” in the new Boost system, it had introduced a temporary “minimum payment guarantee” of £9 to £11 in Birmingham, London and Manchester that runs from September 19 to November 4. The rate covers around 50 hours each week, the spokesperson added.
Riders say this has led to even more unpredictability in earnings, making it hard to eke out a living outside of those periods (which even Uber admits will be a byproduct on its official explanation). “You have to take on more hours, because there’s no other way,” says Ali, who also rides for UberEATS and Deliveroo. “But how many hours are you going to work?” He came to the protest with friends. All of them say that their work now involves waiting around – often burning fuel and resources – before driving long distances for pennies.
Couriers also say that UberEATS, in particular, is sending riders outside of their “delivery zones”, which are areas that riders prefer to stay within. They say it makes food delivery more convenient for everyone involved, including the customer. “They (UberEATS) can send you far away, and keep giving you constant orders sometimes,” says Hasan. “It’s no good”. Riders, Hasan claims, can travel very long distances and make relatively little because of how the prices per mile worked out. Other riders said it had led to them being in completely different areas, and then having to work in those areas because they didn’t want to reject too many requests.
“My zone is in Greenwich,” adds Ali. “Say you count on this £3.50 minimum that they’re saying, and you can do two drops an hour, so that’s £7. But if you take the other stuff and my expenses out that’s me working for £5 an hour.”
“It's the tech that's being used which causes a lot of these issues," says James, a Deliveroo rider. Many of the workers at the protest felt similarly, because they saw their working conditions change without much knowledge of how and why. Ali said he had logged in one day to find that his earnings had decreased, even though he was working roughly the same hours he always had. Couriers also claim they are being penalised for customers not understanding the rating system, which many say has led to them getting fewer jobs. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has previously stated that the firm was looking to make it possible for higher-rated drivers to be requested by customers, although this hasn’t been rolled out yet.
Maintaining a digital picket line is a relatively new challenge. But the sheer scale of the gig economy, particularly in large cities, means that there are always workers willing to break a picket line, either because they haven’t heard about it, don’t think things will change or don’t agree with the protest in general.
One rider, who asked not to be named, says that he came to the protest alongside two other UberEATS riders who were going to make deliveries. Also, the factors which academics have proven to affect strikes – such as social pressure from your colleagues and recognition of a mutual struggle – don’t crop up as often in the gig economy. Without a physical workspace or a line manager, it’s hard to feel a sense of solidarity with your fellow workers unless you go and seek it out.
The market for these services is intensely competitive, and Srnicek points out that falling behind because of strike action could jeopardise a firm’s chance to monopolise the market. He says it wouldn’t be difficult for companies to meet these conditions, even though many are haemorrhaging huge amounts in a very competitive market. Uber made a loss of $4.5 billion (£3.4 billion) in 2017, and Deliveroo reported losses of £185 million last year. “Create laws that mandate that gig economy workers receive the same benefits as ordinary workers,” he says. “But until we get to that point, gig economy companies should continue to expect strikes and worker resistance.”
Updated 08.10.18, 11:20 BST: A statement from UberEATS regarding its Boost feature has been added
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
