Riders: is the contract the solution? The Just Eat case
Why are Just Eat riders in revolt, despite an employee contract? What happens in Italy, France and the United Kingdom
From Italy to France, passing through the United Kingdom: Just Eat employees are in revolt. The only common reason is the contract: if in Italy the riders have paid the greatest protections with a drastic reduction in revenues, in France it is time for layoffs to reduce costs, while in the United Kingdom, after having recognized the status of workers to its riders. employees, Just Eat has started outsourcing their hiring. Let's go step by step.
WHAT HAPPENS IN ITALY
Let's start from Italy. Saturday 22 January, in Genoa, Just Eat employees went on strike to ask for the modification (or withdrawal) of the agreement taken by Cgil, Cisl, Uil and Just Eat itself, with which the work of the riders as subordinate is framed, guaranteeing the contract.
Contract, however, which leaves a lot of discontent among the employees. "Undoubtedly there have been some steps forward compared to the far west of piecework under algorithm of the past years, yet the bargaining of the confederal unions leaves enormous margins of discontent and unacceptable working conditions for workers", writes the basic union acronym Yes Cobas, who organized the strike.
The greater protections deriving from a contract, in fact, have turned into decidedly lower revenues for employees, who, as self-employed, managed to earn an average of 2,000 euros per month, while now claiming to earn half by working twice as much. And they would now like to fully apply the national labor contract for logistics.
But not only. Employees also ask for simple elementary recognitions that should be due to subordinate workers: means of transport provided or reimbursed by the company, restoration of the choice of areas of the city to be covered, better organization of working hours.
FRENCH DISMISSALS
Even beyond the Alps, the choices made by Just Eat are contested. Even in France, the employees of the food delivery platform crossed their arms to denounce their working conditions and unfair layoffs, reports Le Figarò .
Employees, in particular, denounce Just Eat's choice to merge the delivery areas, forcing employees, paid with a minimum wage, to travel even 100 km a day, and the lack of benefits: riders pay for the rental of bikes for move, the telephone to call customers and your subscription.
To further reduce costs, the company has also initiated a series of layoffs, without a just home, according to the unions.
THE CASE OF THE UNITED KINGDOM
In the UK, on the other hand, Just Eat has relied on temporary agencies to make employee riders. Employees, therefore, not of the platform directly, but, in this case, of the Dutch Randstad.
And this is also a reason for dispute. According to Wired reports, in fact, when an employee makes a complaint about a problem at work, he is rebuffed between the two companies.
“In case I don't get the correct salary or I'm not assigned hours, Just Eat sends me back to Randstad, and Randstad to Just Eat,” explained Jake Thomas, a riders.
And Thomas also says that after the first six months of work, Randstad has begun to introduce policies that usually characterize the relationship between a gig economy platform and the self-employed. Thomas was “unable to apply for sickness benefit, which Randstad guarantees only if the rider is absent from work for more than seven consecutive days. In October, the flexibility he was promised also disappeared when he was forced to work at least fifty percent of his hours on peak days – Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. Then, around Christmas, the app started asking Thomas to travel long distances and collect orders from restaurants even fifteen kilometers away, thus limiting the number of deliveries he was able to complete per hour and causing him to miss out on. consequently the bonus he would have obtained for each withdrawal ”, reports Wired .
Other employees also criticized Just Eat's decision to rely on Randstad, since it does not pay so-called "remote riders", ie those who have the ability to start work from home instead of a Just Eat hub, in in case their bicycle has problems during working hours.
The contracts are there, the discontent remains.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia-on-demand/riders-il-contratto-e-la-soluzione-il-caso-just-eat/ on Thu, 27 Jan 2022 06:04:08 +0000.