So when I got to talking to police, there was all of these drivers about, you know, everyone's there,
join in and the bikes are in, you know, everyone stands just blocking the entrance, kind of seeing what was happening.
I mean, I got there and there was all these all of these press people about, you know, what it is, these film cameras and stuff.
You're like, oh, what was going on? It was exciting, you know?
And I was just that was one of the main things. I was sure it was really cool.
It was it was all of these bikes and everyone with that, that they their top boxes of their delivery jackets.
So, you know, right around such a lot of making lots of noise taken over the road.
And I like, you know, like listen to us.
You know, this is happening to me that that that it was just like a really exciting time to to stand up and go.
Yeah, we're not we're not we're not taking it. You know, you can't just do what you want. Thank.
And we will we will resist you because we can you know,
because I know that was I think just the finding out know we can because we want about ourselves.
But going out, we can actually do this. And this is actually possible.
That was the point where it was just like, oh, wow, this is. Yeah, this is what.
Get involved if this is worth pushing for because. Because before then, it wasn't even like a glimmer.
Know, I mean, it wasn't even on the horizon. I had no idea this was possible.
In 2016, the headlines erupted with news that delivery rioters in London were on strike.
This was the first time that workers in the gig economy had mobilised in the UK, taking to the streets to make their voices heard.
The events that took place that summer shaped the lives of workers in the economy.
To this day, we're still coming to terms with the ramifications of its successes and failures.
I'm Robbie Waron and this is the Fair Work podcast. A dive into the lives of the people working within the gate.
This episode looks a representation. What is like trying to organise and negotiate with gig economy platforms?
What are the difficulties talking of a company that doesn't legally employ you?
And what happens when hundreds of workers come out from behind the screen to make their voices heard?
So I Mohan and I initially started working for delivery in February 2016.
And yeah, I worked for delivery full time for about three years roughly.
And that's the first thing that drew me to it most as a job, was the fact that it's.
It's working on a bike. You know, you'd spend hours and hours riding around.
And I really enjoy that. Like I was there like six hundred miles a week out of roughly for most of that time.
And I always it's kind of it's the fact that you're not directly alterable to someone is really appealing.
Like it's even though you do have to kind of work within parameters that are set.
It's very different to. Having like a supervisor or a manager kind of breathing down your neck.
Mohanned worked in East London in the area ranging from Shoreditch up to Bethnal Green.
And when he first died, working shifts were scheduled and all riders were on a base rate of seven pounds per hour, plus one pound per delivery.
I know. I used to I used to work split shifts, lunch and evening, and it was scheduled shifts.
So you would have your availability and it would be said to you and you do regular shifts every week.
And so the evening shift can normally start around five or six.
At the first hour, we'd be sat around and everyone together and.
Yeah. So, yeah, you kind of you kind of sit around for an hour. Everyone would kind of gather together.
They'd be slowly like, wait for that first stop, go resume off, do the job, come back to Lambe Street which was also in centre.
And there was really social that then there is actually at the start it was really, really social,
like everyone would be in that little area, just sitting around waiting for the jobs.
Essentially, the delivery app works by directing riders to specific areas of the city known as zone centres to wait for orders.
These are areas of the city in close proximity to a large number of restaurants, allowing deliveries to be completed as quickly as possible.
The knock on effect of this is that these spots act as key points for riders to meet and get to know one another.
It wasn't until much later on the mohand would come to recognise the importance of these connexions.
So there was a quite strong sense of community that mainly came around.
The fact that most of us were pretty much all of us would wait around was on centre.
And because you'd be waiting there. Right.
And you'd be waiting now for your bikes and you're all in your delivery jackets. They'd be like all of the motorcycles on one side.
Bicycle was kind of a little further down the road.
And you just sit and talk about bikes, you know, and that's that most of the time, you know, I've made some really good friends.
Like, I'm still. Like what? All the time. Who have you.
I met during delivery. And like, even if you did kind of get the chance to speak to it,
be like even even the like the friendly little nod to another, like, delivery driver when you will pass.
I liked it so you'd be stopped at red light. And you're both kind of at the light just trying while you wait for the lights to change.
And yeah, those were very kind of those kind of reinforced that sense of community couriering is a dangerous job.
And the absence of an official safety net provided by an employer means that this sense of community also plays a functional role,
helping riders navigate the problems they encounter in their work.
I've had quite a few crashes at my time as a career. Most of them fault.
A couple of them above all. But there was one where I.
I just slipped off. It was wet and it was horrible.
Is a really, really horrible day. And then I slipped my bike, slipped on a piece of road furniture on like a like a drain cover.
And I slipped out. Spun for, like, I don't know, maybe like 15, 20 metres.
I've got my bike. My foot caught under the bike. It was probably stuck by me.
It wasn't actually that badly injured, but just had the bike on top of me and was in shock.
Essentially, a passing career stopped to help my hand, pulling the bike off of him on discovering that the bike with,
um, rideable together, they pushed the bike to a spot where they could safely leave it.
The crash happened when it was on the on the red route where basically, if I I'd left my bike there to go shoot myself out, I saw the bike.
I would have got a ticket. And then the career kind of helped me push my bike, maybe like a hundred metres around the corner so I could pocket some.
Somewhere safe. But it was me. I was. You really help. Kind of. Just just the fact that when these things happen, like, it's it's scary.
You know, it's one of those especially kind of like thankfully I wasn't too I wasn't like injured that time.
But like there has been times I've been up and really injured and it's kind of.
Yeah, it's having it, knowing that if these things happen, like people are willing to stop an L will it.
But what Mohand didn't know is that this community was about to be brought together in new ways to fight for their rights.
In a battle that continues to impact and every right is today. I.
I was picking up an order from Rich Mix in between somewhat irrational for now,
but it's that, yeah, there are a restaurant better green than any place.
And I just picked up an order and I come outside and it was another driver there who I knew.
And he was just like, man, have you seen what's going on? I'm like, no. Well, we took him out and he showed me on his phone.
The guys from CTT and Amsterdam. Belsize up outside Toynton place, which was delivery's headquarters at the time.
Yeah. It's just the kind of commotion and what was going on at this point.
I had no idea about the payment change. You know, it wasn't easy.
We didn't know about it. Like the first we heard about it was a few other drivers like Back-Seat.
The first I heard about was him showing me that people are kicking off. You don't even know what they were kicking off about.
He was just like like [INAUDIBLE] guy. Now, let me see this long back now.
So I went and dropped off that order and then went to talk someplace like signed.
I went to talk to place and was like, yo, what's what's going on? And then that was the first I'd heard about the change in payment structure.
Unbeknown to Mohan, delivery was radically changing the way in which it paid its rights.
So what delivery were doing then?
But they were they were moving us from our current based doctor at that time, which was seven pounds an hour about the job prospects were tips.
They were moving everyone to a paper job, delivering a paper job, piece rate where they would get paid three point seventy five per job.
That would be it would no base rate. There's still petrol and you'd still get your tips, but there was no base rate.
So that meant if you got one one or one job in one hour, you would get three point seventy five.
Whereas before in that one hour you would have got eight pound plus however much mileage you did for that one job.
So it's a big change, you know, a big change that would have hit everyone in their pockets quite hard,
especially those of us who were doing it full time. You had like you were doing a 40 50 furfur for that at that time.
I was I was doing like 60 hour weeks, you know, most my stomach being six to eight weeks.
Especially for the I for those of us who were doing a full time, whereas our primary income, everyone really hard.
And yeah, I know when they first did it, they were like, oh, it's a trial. You know, we're not gonna make anyone fall.
And, you know, a few years down the line, everyone's favourite.
There are no hourlies zones left. So when I got to times to place, there was already strivers about, you know, everyone's there,
kind of join in and the bikes are arrive in, you know, everyone stages just blocking the entrance, kind of seeing what was happening.
I mean, when I got there and then there was all these all these press people about,
you know, what it is, these film cameras and stuff, you're like, oh, what's what's going on?
So when I got there, there was like lots of lots of delivery couriers who are about to make a lot of noise.
Kind of want in. And then there were people from the IWG who were there who like same day cycle careers,
probably the IWG be their trade union based in the UK, which predominantly represent people in precarious work.
Just prior to like our action as delivery drivers,
the IWG kind of cycle careers had managed to win a massive pay rise for Seasprite careers and equally E- career careers.
So then they were telling us about their victories and how how they managed to
push and push that their employers to do anything to get this big pay rise.
And it was just it was really about nanospheres for me.
Like, I never knew that we could even have a you know, when I first when I joined, like I was like I called self-employed out on my own.
Things go wrong. Does this disconnect it? You there's not much we can do.
I felt really good, really quite powerless about it.
And it was just really empowering to see kind of lots of people like me in the same position as me kind of coming together and changing things.
And while he's trying to change things and I just didn't even even the fact the people are trying to so powerful in itself
and hearing from the psycho couriers about what they had done and how they managed to push to to better their conditions,
it was exciting. I'm here on day three of a industrial action by delivery switch drivers cycling.
At the end of the day off. We make a profit for them because they're going to.
So listen to everyone individually. You'll see them Damascus,
like farming workers organising responding to gig economy through precisely
the same technologies by which these companies are made incredible profits.
It was exciting, you know, enough dust. That was one of the main things when he was sure it was really cool.
It was all these bikes and everyone with their dad, their top boxes and their delivery jackets of,
you know, riding around such a lot and making lots of noise, taking over the road.
Glad, like, you know, like listen to us. You know, this has happened in, like, not even just a public even other delivery workers,
because, like, I think of like the fact that I found out from another driver,
I didn't find out from anyone else, you know, I didn't find out from delivers anything you or or something in the press or something.
I found out because the driver told me this was going on and they.
It was just really exciting to the fact that like all of us. Yeah. Just there and we rode around, you know, we rode around multiple places.
Your dad's like BBC or like the recruitments said go to interview, said that that interview had went to like some restaurants and stuff.
Yeah. It was for me that that got that. It was just like a really exciting time to stand up and go.
Yeah. We're not we're not we're not taking it. You know, you can't just do what you want. Like, we will.
We will resist because we can, you know, because it was I think that just the finding out.
We come because we want to better ourselves. And it's just got going that we can actually do this.
And this is actually possible. That was the point. It was just like, oh, wow, this is yes.
This is what get involved if this is left pushing for. Because because before then, it wasn't even like a glimmer, you know.
I mean, it wasn't even on the horizon. I had no idea this was possible.
And, yeah, it was just it was super exciting just to have the opportunity to be part of
something where you're standing up for especially cause it's so important,
like historically black, even at that point, like everyone would like deliver Rudys things.
These apps were all of this. You know, historically, these things are important.
You know, these things are changing. And everyone's been aware of from from from day one, you know,
and we've been aware of the fact that these things are changing and to be poor or trying to make sure those changes are for the better,
not only for myself, for everybody else, for all of us who are in that situation, not just in this country, around the world.
You know, Kinkead,
these companies are changing things drastically and the opportunity to be part of making sure that change was positive for the people,
not just for the investors, not just for it, for their employees, not just for the developers and the tech people, for their careers.
Switchfoot an everyday.
And I think that was that was what felt so powerful is the fact that we know what we are doing is part of change in history for for us.
And people like us in the future. And I think that's yeah, that's that's what was so powerful about being there and the kind of emotional power.
So, like, it's just collective action, you know. It's a feeling. It's a feeling of power.
And nobody can can explain it to you. You have to feel it. You have to be there.
And you have to feel that collective might that you have when you stand side by side with each other.
And that is. Yeah, that is where I felt it first.
I suppose that the first time I felt that feeling of collective power was stood outside.
I thought the place was gone. With delivery drivers, revenue is making lots of noise and telling the bosses that we are here and you
can't do what you want because we are the ones who make make you your money.
So you all listen to us and you all do what we what we tell you.
A key demand of the strikes was that riders would not be forced onto peace right work and given the option of remaining on an hourly wage.
But that basic protection of no, that even if you don't get sent any work the hour, you will still get paid.
And that was the core thing, is just making sure that nobody is forced to move from hourly to peace free, because that's with delivery guy.
Looked like a core group of people do most of the work. Like, most of the work is done by people who do a full time day in, day out.
But then there's quite a lot of people who will do just a weekend or just a couple of hours here a day.
And for those people, yeah, sure, it might work well for those people who are there everyday who deliver reliable.
To do that, to do most the bulk of the work. The peace rate penalised us massively.
Delivery claimed at the time this was simply a trial and that riders would not be forced onto peace.
Right work on a permanent basis, a claim it would later rollback on with all riders in London now working entirely on a piece rate system of payment.
So that shift from hourly rate to piece rate just changes the way you work entirely.
For most people, but if you don't work in a gig economy, you're working at a job where you get paid.
When you call Kidon 20 Crocco. Right. Your workday is what you'll get paid for.
It doesn't matter how productive you've been on network day, you can sit in the office and do no work at all.
You know, you probably will get it out for long, but you're not going to get penalised for that.
The shift to piece rate work substantially changes how you work and when you work without any guaranteed income.
Workers need to plan their working hours around when there is likely to be the most amount of orders available.
For Mohan, the shift to piece rate meant they had to completely reorganise his life working irregular hours over longer periods of time.
Before I used to, I used to take Saturdays off as soon as I started delivering.
I from from day one, I told him I want to have my Saturdays off just like six days a week.
But to me, it's important for me to have a weekend.
Day off, well, also like just to have a normal axilla, because most people work Monday to Friday to have weekends off,
whereas where is did the busy times for delivery was weekends.
So I had to then change my day, my day off.
You know, I, I don't I don't have to start working on Saturdays because if I didn't, I wouldn't be making enough money.
I suppose I suppose that the kind of biggest change is just going that now no longer matters kind of how many hours I'm at work.
That is the time that's a big kind of shift in the way you think about work, you know,
because you're not getting paid for a day, you're getting paid for four for the number of units you what you can produce.
And that fully changes how you think about it. And it's really hard to articulate what affect that does have.
But it's like, I don't know, it's like going. It's going.
If you a bus driver, you're not getting paid for the route you do. You're getting paid for the number of passengers that.
Come on. Now, how will you as a bus driver? How can you how can you control how many passengers get on your bus?
You call it. There's no way you have any any any control over how many passengers step onto that bus.
So you have no idea how much you're going to get paid. You have no idea whether whether you're gonna have enough money to pay your bills that much.
Add on top of that Dambusters, it doesn't belong to the company that belongs to you.
So every day you run that, every hour you're on the road, every minute you're on the road.
That's costing you money in wear and tear in fuel.
You're paying the word at the highest level of insurance because you're carrying things for you as a business.
So you're paying you're paying lots and lots of money out all the time.
But you have zero control over how much money you can make.
You have no way of increasing that. You have no way of controlling the government.
Zero influence on it at all. You relied on that to put food on the table and not entirely shift the way you think about work.
And yeah, it just it just it just changes it, you know, it changes it from something that I did really enjoy.
You know, I really did like being on the bike all day. You know, and make him I live in that.
And it just added to the stress in such a immense way that I don't have the kind of words to articulate.
I asked Mohand about how the shift to peace ray and how delivery implemented these changes affected how he viewed his relationship with the company.
So the way the changes happened, I suppose they made me feel kind of angry initially was the first my first kind
of emotional response was the fact that she kind of delivery at that time.
You know, everyone's talking about how you.
Yeah, these unicorn companies know they're great for the economy or to make all of this money that a future jolts.
And it's like me really wants respect for you every day.
You know, I mean, I'm the one putting my life at risk all the time for you guys so I can make my living.
Yeah, you guys are getting paid tons and tons and tons, you know.
I will choose making. Lord knows how much money you know, all of these people who are employees of delivery are making tons of money.
They're getting share options.
And all it is a fact is here your business will be nowhere if you work for drivers like me and like the people around me,
you know, who are every everyday. Bucket for you.
Like, how can you take these people and throw them away and go, actually, you know, your bills don't matter in your lifetime?
You know what I mean is, is that delivery. That's the only thing that matters.
And I think that's that's what it showed.
It showed me how how little they value the people who work for the people who do actually work for them, who they claim to work.
It is the fact that we were so like our time and ah ah ah energy wasn't actually worth anything.
The only thing that was of value to them was the food getting from A to B,
not the fact that that person who's doing that has a life as all who has to has to make
enough money and has to do all of these things just to get by just like everybody else.
And I think that was the primary kind of feeling I had at the time. It was how disposable and how worthless we are to them.
Let them be in the delivery. And the employer, the company, they just didn't care about us as people during the initial stages of the strikes.
Riders came together and worked in collaboration with representatives from the trade union,
the independent workers of Great Britain, to develop a set of demands and elect representatives.
So we communicate to delivery.
So if they refused to even speak to anyone, know, they didn't want to speak to us collectively to chance or listen to everyone individually.
And then I was I them the place I think we've made a delegation of like four or five people who because delivery said, are you.
We'll speak to, you know. Yeah.
So I was like maybe about four or five people who, like we as a group kind of go and like elected as delegates, essentially.
Maybe kind of agree to the points that we had. And I think with like four or five or 10 points up yet.
And then they went up and spoke to them. And then there was like, no no real kind of movement.
They were saying how like, oh, yeah, we'll speak to people individually, you know, we'll speak to people individually.
They really refused to accept the collective aspects.
You know, they wanted to speak to us as an individual unit.
You know, that individual powerless unit, you know, as you are by yourself, like you don't feel powerful at all,
you know, but they just they refused to accept the fact that we were talking as a collective.
They refused to accept the fact that the people there had decided that this person would give them the authority.
You know, we've agreed these points. These are the points we agree on. You know, we want these things to happen.
This person speaks for the authority for all of us. You know, we are we have delegates as our representative in the remove you.
So you need to speak to them. And from what I can gather, I can remember, like the people who were in the room both saying how like delivery.
We just refused to accept that that collective voice that a person spoke with.
At the start of the strike, there was no official trade union involved, him representing delivery riders at a large scale.
So you saw that strike initially was called by drivers and free zones. Right.
So there was a TKD Hampstead at Belsize with the drivers and those free zones who took no action, like by themselves.
So that day would you had that existing community and I had people who were like leaders who people knew,
everyone knew, and everyone's like respected and spoke to kind of who were able to mobilise people.
As the strike progressed, riders moved to establish official trade union representation through the IWG lobby by
joining their courier and logistics branch under the European Convention of Human Rights.
All workers are entitled to union recognition.
However, this does not extend to those that self-employed delivery riders are classed as self-employed independent contractors,
and therefore delivery is not obliged to recognise the right for a trade union to represent a body of workers.
So once we were in the Bronx and we were organised as members of the union delivery stood out,
except kind of that collective that the authority did not recognise the authority of a collective voice like it anyway.
Even now, you know, even up to now,
I know it is like members of the branch who who who are you are forced to do things that are true, like black as themselves,
because it's just because it's quicker to get a response than it's easier to get a
response in time for them to act as themselves rather than trying to go to Sri Lanka.
We are the union. This is what we say. But that being said, I know like people have had like some success with casework and stuff.
Trudeau a lot of it, a lot of the kind of the union voice getting to deliver is do that by you know, it is through employees, it's through the press.
It's not through a collective conversation.
With respect, on both sides talk like it's it's it's delivery,
dragging their feet and having to be taken through the court of public opinion and the pressure on Congress that to change,
I think meaningfully should a bit [INAUDIBLE]. To be honest, I don't really know if there's a better way to phrase it.
It's just kind of sucks. You know, it's like I call you know,
we've got to through Will especially kind of when you when you when you spent take time strike organisers always just like,
you know, we've got all these members now. We've got all these people kind of why why would they listen to us now like they still wordlist us.
You know, we've got members and we've got people like we still have to like as much has taken action is is fun.
And you shoot OPOWER. How stressful. It's one of those things that I shouldn't have to be you shouldn't have to do that.
You know, I shouldn't have to like I collectively, we shouldn't have to go out and strike and boycott and picket,
do all of these things because like just acknowledge the fact that, you know, we're here.
You see that we're here because we turn up at your office to cause mayhem, because you won't speak to us.
Just speak to us, you know, and it's just it's just it's just.
Yeah, it's it's just imperious. It's everything. Would it anything. It's just like common like for real.
How else do you want us to prove the fact that this is what we're saying and you need to listen to us.
You know, you should be like we shouldn't have to do that.
It's like if you're a kid and you're in a classroom and your hands up, you're like, yo, sir, please, please.
I got I got outside. You know, I've got all these just they're just ignoring like a moment, like for real,
you know, I would like to get somebody from a terror out to listen to. And that's essentially what it's like.
It's like when you're in a classroom or listen to music,
you have to you have to be that kid in the corner there smashing up the table until he listens to you.
And it's like, well, for you, like, you know, we're adults. She for some respect, you know, I'm not I'm not a kid.
We've been told off. I'm an adult who's at work, you know, like treat me with a beard to court.
Ultimately, the strikes were unsuccessful. And after several weeks, riders went back to work without their demands being met.
Delivery would go on to implement a piece rate system of payment for all riders on a permanent basis.
However, the IWG be to this day, it's a powerful force campaigning for the rights of careers in the gig economy.
For Mohanned, the shift to piecework ultimately led him to leave career work.
That was the point where I felt like we were getting pushed to go quicker and take more risks than that.
I really should have, you know. And that, yeah, it's just it's just that shift from hourly to piece rate,
just the level of stress induces in people is so hard to imagine unless you're in that situation.
Thanks to Mohan beeswax for sharing his story. For workers to meaningfully have a voice in determining their working conditions,
they must be able to bargain with the platform for collective or representative body at Fair Work.
We believe that all work can and should be characterised by fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts,
fair management and fair representation platforms ultimately have the power to improve standards and the ability to choose.
In the UK, the structure of gig work means that platforms have no legal obligation to recognise trade unions and other representative organisations.
The platforms can improve the work they provide by taking a proactive approach to representation,
recognising existing organisations where they do exist,
encouraging their development where they don't, and entering into negotiations in good faith at Fair Work.
We're actively campaigning to improve the conditions for gig workers around the world and hold platforms to account.
You can find out more about Fair Work. This episode was written and produced by We'll Be Wearing with Composition by Louis Ballet's.