Couriers at work. Photo, Glyn Owen
AS DELIVEROO LAUNCHES ITS IPO, NETTING HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF POUNDS FOR ITS CEO AND INVESTORS SUCH AS AMAZON, AMID THE BACKDROP OF ITS DELIVERY WORKERS PREPARING TO TAKE MASSIVE STRIKE ACTION AGAINST POOR PAY AND CONDITIONS, A DELIVEROO COURIER IN WALES REVEALS WHAT LIFE HAS BEEN LIKE WORKING FOR THE INFAMOUS COMPANY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC.
Each day before heading out to work, I would set a target of how much I wanted or needed to earn. This would be a combination of what bills were due or other household costs. I usually set this target at around £80 per day, as I knew this would generally keep me and my family going, but very rarely was I ever actually able to make anywhere near that amount.
At the start of a typical day, I would travel to a zone of my choice or pick a spot that appeared to be busy as represented by purple spots on the map in the platform app: the darker the purple the busier the spot — at least according to Deliveroo’s algorithm.
I’d turn my car off then sit and wait until the app pinged with an order. Sometimes this could be within minutes, but the vast majority of the time I would spend hours waiting on a delivery, depending on the volume of deliveries in the area and how many other riders were logged on.
After a while of not receiving an order, other riders will come and speak to you to ask how you’ve done that day and how much you’ve made. They share their frustration with you after being out for hours not getting jobs, or even scornfully look at you when you’ve told them you’ve made 50p more than them in ten minutes less time. It causes a lot of tension between riders.
The majority of Deliveroo workers I come across are people with families and children trying to make ends-meet. Sometimes I would get angry or upset about how little we’re getting paid compared to what’s advertised and spread across social media. I’m still yet to meet a courier that actually makes £10 an hour. Typically I would average around £6.70 an hour after expenses — well below the National Living Wage. At the same time we now have the Deliveroo CEO, Will Shu, about to make hundreds of millions of pounds from the company’s upcoming IPO on the London Stock Exchange — a fortune built on the backs of desperate riders who are desperate for some kind of stability in their life. Sure, there is some element of flexible working, but it just isn’t suitable.
I often find myself being stuck in a vicious circle of having to work long days and long hours because the pay is just so far from being sufficient. If I don’t earn enough one day I think to myself, ‘I’ll make it up tomorrow’, but in reality it never happens, and it just becomes a never-ending cycle.
Riders don’t get paid for waiting time, so if I’m out for 8 hours in a day I may only complete a couple of deliveries during those hours. After deducting my expenses I’m left with very little. It’s affected my mental health incredibly; having that strain of not being self-sufficient or being able to support my family. Stereotypically I would often put on a brave face and bottle it all up, when sometimes my heart is just sinking — working overtime to consciously avoid going home to my fiancé and having to explain I haven’t earned enough that day. However understanding my family is, it’s still incredibly hard and it just gets too much sometimes. There’ve been moments when I have ended up losing my shit and felt like giving up hope.
Eventually I was forced to get a full-time job when I came to the realisation that the dream life that was advertised to me was just a fantasy. Deliveroo have always stated that they would like to give its workers more rights, but the price would be a compromise on flexibility.
Uber recently made a huge U-turn on worker’s rights, demonstrating that these platform companies can offer better pay and conditions to their workforce while maintaining worker flexibility. Deliveroo pushes the idea that flexibility only benefits its workers, but not the business. In actuality it is highly beneficial to their business model as it allows them to meet the fluctuating demand for deliveries.
It gets to a point when you’re out in the cold because you haven’t even earned enough to keep the car running, and ultimately your earnings are just being eaten up. We’re not allowed in the restaurants due to Covid and there’s no designated safe areas for couriers, meaning that riders are risking their lives and health daily, while also being out in all kinds of weather. I’ve been given very little PPE from Deliveroo and when it did finally arrive quite a way into the pandemic, it was very limited.
The immoral actions of these poorly regulated corporations, which the government allows to operate with near-total impunity, are at the core of the multi-million-pound empires that are being built.
The UK Government has completely failed to support precarious workers throughout the pandemic — only offering limited help to those that have been in the system for a long period of time. Newly self-employed workers were left struggling with no support grants available, having to survive off stretched Universal Credit budgets.
The government and local authorities have also failed to protect workers by not keeping on top of these issues — instead, often brushing them aside. I’ve witnessed health and safety laws being broken regularly by restaurants that have refused basic rights, such as toilet access or even sanitizer — even not wearing face masks.
The government has played a big part in allowing things to get out of hand in the first place by not regulating the gig-economy and only engaging in minimal enforcement of employment legislation. Ultimately, this has led to gig-economy workers being exploited en masse.
It’s also worrying how these exploitive companies are linking-up with other companies who are guilty of worker exploitation, which we are now seeing with Amazon owning a massive stake in Deliveroo.
In the face of this level of worker exploitation, many workers including myself have been turning to unions such as the Independent Workers of Great Britain, for support. Through the IWGB I was able to connect with hundreds of others who were in the same situation as me; underpaid, overworked, mistreated, and exploited. It is where I discovered that being silent wasn’t the answer. The unity I felt as part of a union made me speak up and force issues to get resolved. Now, because of my involvement in union activities and group actions, we have made local restaurants work more effectively with couriers.
In such a short time the collective action of the IWGB has re-shaped who I am. I no longer roll over and take the abuses that these companies try to commit. Most importantly, it made me realise that I am worth so much more, and that only I can decide that worth — not Deliveroo, nor any other company pedalling bogus self-employment.
The job of a courier isn’t something I would quickly encourage others into, but especially not to do so alone. The work is isolating, which is something that these companies rely upon. That’s why you need someone to have your back, and there really is power in a union. It makes you feel part of something much more powerful when you’re alone on the road.
Marc Jelly is Chair of IWGB Couriers Cymru
