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So when I got to talking to police, there was all of these drivers about, you know, everyone's there,

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join in and the bikes are in, you know, everyone stands just blocking the entrance, kind of seeing what was happening.

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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.

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You're like, oh, what was going on? It was exciting, you know?

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And I was just that was one of the main things. I was sure it was really cool.

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It was it was all of these bikes and everyone with that, that they their top boxes of their delivery jackets.

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So, you know, right around such a lot of making lots of noise taken over the road.

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And I like, you know, like listen to us.

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You know, this is happening to me that that that it was just like a really exciting time to to stand up and go.

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Yeah, we're not we're not we're not taking it. You know, you can't just do what you want. Thank.

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And we will we will resist you because we can you know,

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because I know that was I think just the finding out know we can because we want about ourselves.

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But going out, we can actually do this. And this is actually possible.

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That was the point where it was just like, oh, wow, this is. Yeah, this is what.

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Get involved if this is worth pushing for because. Because before then, it wasn't even like a glimmer.

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Know, I mean, it wasn't even on the horizon. I had no idea this was possible.

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In 2016, the headlines erupted with news that delivery rioters in London were on strike.

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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.

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The events that took place that summer shaped the lives of workers in the economy.

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To this day, we're still coming to terms with the ramifications of its successes and failures.

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I'm Robbie Waron and this is the Fair Work podcast. A dive into the lives of the people working within the gate.

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This episode looks a representation. What is like trying to organise and negotiate with gig economy platforms?

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What are the difficulties talking of a company that doesn't legally employ you?

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And what happens when hundreds of workers come out from behind the screen to make their voices heard?

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So I Mohan and I initially started working for delivery in February 2016.

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And yeah, I worked for delivery full time for about three years roughly.

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And that's the first thing that drew me to it most as a job, was the fact that it's.

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It's working on a bike. You know, you'd spend hours and hours riding around.

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And I really enjoy that. Like I was there like six hundred miles a week out of roughly for most of that time.

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And I always it's kind of it's the fact that you're not directly alterable to someone is really appealing.

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Like it's even though you do have to kind of work within parameters that are set.

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It's very different to. Having like a supervisor or a manager kind of breathing down your neck.

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Mohanned worked in East London in the area ranging from Shoreditch up to Bethnal Green.

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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.

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I know. I used to I used to work split shifts, lunch and evening, and it was scheduled shifts.

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So you would have your availability and it would be said to you and you do regular shifts every week.

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And so the evening shift can normally start around five or six.

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At the first hour, we'd be sat around and everyone together and.

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Yeah. So, yeah, you kind of you kind of sit around for an hour. Everyone would kind of gather together.

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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.

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And there was really social that then there is actually at the start it was really, really social,

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like everyone would be in that little area, just sitting around waiting for the jobs.

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Essentially, the delivery app works by directing riders to specific areas of the city known as zone centres to wait for orders.

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These are areas of the city in close proximity to a large number of restaurants, allowing deliveries to be completed as quickly as possible.

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The knock on effect of this is that these spots act as key points for riders to meet and get to know one another.

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It wasn't until much later on the mohand would come to recognise the importance of these connexions.

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So there was a quite strong sense of community that mainly came around.

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The fact that most of us were pretty much all of us would wait around was on centre.

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And because you'd be waiting there. Right.

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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.

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Bicycle was kind of a little further down the road.

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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.

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Like, I'm still. Like what? All the time. Who have you.

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I met during delivery. And like, even if you did kind of get the chance to speak to it,

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be like even even the like the friendly little nod to another, like, delivery driver when you will pass.

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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.

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And yeah, those were very kind of those kind of reinforced that sense of community couriering is a dangerous job.

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And the absence of an official safety net provided by an employer means that this sense of community also plays a functional role,

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helping riders navigate the problems they encounter in their work.

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I've had quite a few crashes at my time as a career. Most of them fault.

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A couple of them above all. But there was one where I.

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I just slipped off. It was wet and it was horrible.

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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.

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And I slipped out. Spun for, like, I don't know, maybe like 15, 20 metres.

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I've got my bike. My foot caught under the bike. It was probably stuck by me.

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It wasn't actually that badly injured, but just had the bike on top of me and was in shock.

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Essentially, a passing career stopped to help my hand, pulling the bike off of him on discovering that the bike with,

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um, rideable together, they pushed the bike to a spot where they could safely leave it.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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You know, it's one of those especially kind of like thankfully I wasn't too I wasn't like injured that time.

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But like there has been times I've been up and really injured and it's kind of.

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Yeah, it's having it, knowing that if these things happen, like people are willing to stop an L will it.

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But what Mohand didn't know is that this community was about to be brought together in new ways to fight for their rights.

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In a battle that continues to impact and every right is today. I.

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I was picking up an order from Rich Mix in between somewhat irrational for now,

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but it's that, yeah, there are a restaurant better green than any place.

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And I just picked up an order and I come outside and it was another driver there who I knew.

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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.

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The guys from CTT and Amsterdam. Belsize up outside Toynton place, which was delivery's headquarters at the time.

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Yeah. It's just the kind of commotion and what was going on at this point.

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I had no idea about the payment change. You know, it wasn't easy.

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We didn't know about it. Like the first we heard about it was a few other drivers like Back-Seat.

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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.

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He was just like like [INAUDIBLE] guy. Now, let me see this long back now.

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So I went and dropped off that order and then went to talk someplace like signed.

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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.

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Unbeknown to Mohan, delivery was radically changing the way in which it paid its rights.

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So what delivery were doing then?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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So that meant if you got one one or one job in one hour, you would get three point seventy five.

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Whereas before in that one hour you would have got eight pound plus however much mileage you did for that one job.

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So it's a big change, you know, a big change that would have hit everyone in their pockets quite hard,

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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.

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I was I was doing like 60 hour weeks, you know, most my stomach being six to eight weeks.

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Especially for the I for those of us who were doing a full time, whereas our primary income, everyone really hard.

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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.

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And, you know, a few years down the line, everyone's favourite.

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There are no hourlies zones left. So when I got to times to place, there was already strivers about, you know, everyone's there,

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kind of join in and the bikes are arrive in, you know, everyone stages just blocking the entrance, kind of seeing what was happening.

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I mean, when I got there and then there was all these all these press people about,

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you know, what it is, these film cameras and stuff, you're like, oh, what's what's going on?

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So when I got there, there was like lots of lots of delivery couriers who are about to make a lot of noise.

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Kind of want in. And then there were people from the IWG who were there who like same day cycle careers,

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probably the IWG be their trade union based in the UK, which predominantly represent people in precarious work.

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Just prior to like our action as delivery drivers,

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the IWG kind of cycle careers had managed to win a massive pay rise for Seasprite careers and equally E- career careers.

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So then they were telling us about their victories and how how they managed to

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push and push that their employers to do anything to get this big pay rise.

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And it was just it was really about nanospheres for me.

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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.

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Things go wrong. Does this disconnect it? You there's not much we can do.

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I felt really good, really quite powerless about it.

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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.

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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

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and hearing from the psycho couriers about what they had done and how they managed to push to to better their conditions,

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it was exciting. I'm here on day three of a industrial action by delivery switch drivers cycling.

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At the end of the day off. We make a profit for them because they're going to.

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So listen to everyone individually. You'll see them Damascus,

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like farming workers organising responding to gig economy through precisely

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the same technologies by which these companies are made incredible profits.

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It was exciting, you know, enough dust. That was one of the main things when he was sure it was really cool.

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It was all these bikes and everyone with their dad, their top boxes and their delivery jackets of,

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you know, riding around such a lot and making lots of noise, taking over the road.

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Glad, like, you know, like listen to us. You know, this has happened in, like, not even just a public even other delivery workers,

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because, like, I think of like the fact that I found out from another driver,

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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.

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I found out because the driver told me this was going on and they.

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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.

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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.

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Yeah. It was for me that that got that. It was just like a really exciting time to stand up and go.

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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.

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We will resist because we can, you know, because it was I think that just the finding out.

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We come because we want to better ourselves. And it's just got going that we can actually do this.

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And this is actually possible. That was the point. It was just like, oh, wow, this is yes.

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This is what get involved if this is left pushing for. Because because before then, it wasn't even like a glimmer, you know.

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I mean, it wasn't even on the horizon. I had no idea this was possible.

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And, yeah, it was just it was super exciting just to have the opportunity to be part of

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something where you're standing up for especially cause it's so important,

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like historically black, even at that point, like everyone would like deliver Rudys things.

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These apps were all of this. You know, historically, these things are important.

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You know, these things are changing. And everyone's been aware of from from from day one, you know,

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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,

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not only for myself, for everybody else, for all of us who are in that situation, not just in this country, around the world.

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You know, Kinkead,

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these companies are changing things drastically and the opportunity to be part of making sure that change was positive for the people,

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not just for the investors, not just for it, for their employees, not just for the developers and the tech people, for their careers.

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Switchfoot an everyday.

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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.

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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.

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So, like, it's just collective action, you know. It's a feeling. It's a feeling of power.

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And nobody can can explain it to you. You have to feel it. You have to be there.

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And you have to feel that collective might that you have when you stand side by side with each other.

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And that is. Yeah, that is where I felt it first.

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I suppose that the first time I felt that feeling of collective power was stood outside.

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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

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can't do what you want because we are the ones who make make you your money.

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So you all listen to us and you all do what we what we tell you.

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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.

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But that basic protection of no, that even if you don't get sent any work the hour, you will still get paid.

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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.

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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.

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But then there's quite a lot of people who will do just a weekend or just a couple of hours here a day.

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And for those people, yeah, sure, it might work well for those people who are there everyday who deliver reliable.

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To do that, to do most the bulk of the work. The peace rate penalised us massively.

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Delivery claimed at the time this was simply a trial and that riders would not be forced onto peace.

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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.

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So that shift from hourly rate to piece rate just changes the way you work entirely.

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For most people, but if you don't work in a gig economy, you're working at a job where you get paid.

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When you call Kidon 20 Crocco. Right. Your workday is what you'll get paid for.

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It doesn't matter how productive you've been on network day, you can sit in the office and do no work at all.

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You know, you probably will get it out for long, but you're not going to get penalised for that.

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The shift to piece rate work substantially changes how you work and when you work without any guaranteed income.

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Workers need to plan their working hours around when there is likely to be the most amount of orders available.

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For Mohan, the shift to piece rate meant they had to completely reorganise his life working irregular hours over longer periods of time.

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Before I used to, I used to take Saturdays off as soon as I started delivering.

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I from from day one, I told him I want to have my Saturdays off just like six days a week.

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But to me, it's important for me to have a weekend.

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Day off, well, also like just to have a normal axilla, because most people work Monday to Friday to have weekends off,

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whereas where is did the busy times for delivery was weekends.

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So I had to then change my day, my day off.

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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.

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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.

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That is the time that's a big kind of shift in the way you think about work, you know,

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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.

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And that fully changes how you think about it. And it's really hard to articulate what affect that does have.

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But it's like, I don't know, it's like going. It's going.

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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.

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Come on. Now, how will you as a bus driver? How can you how can you control how many passengers get on your bus?

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You call it. There's no way you have any any any control over how many passengers step onto that bus.

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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.

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Add on top of that Dambusters, it doesn't belong to the company that belongs to you.

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So every day you run that, every hour you're on the road, every minute you're on the road.

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That's costing you money in wear and tear in fuel.

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You're paying the word at the highest level of insurance because you're carrying things for you as a business.

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So you're paying you're paying lots and lots of money out all the time.

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But you have zero control over how much money you can make.

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You have no way of increasing that. You have no way of controlling the government.

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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.

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And yeah, it just it just it just changes it, you know, it changes it from something that I did really enjoy.

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You know, I really did like being on the bike all day. You know, and make him I live in that.

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And it just added to the stress in such a immense way that I don't have the kind of words to articulate.

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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.

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So the way the changes happened, I suppose they made me feel kind of angry initially was the first my first kind

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of emotional response was the fact that she kind of delivery at that time.

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You know, everyone's talking about how you.

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Yeah, these unicorn companies know they're great for the economy or to make all of this money that a future jolts.

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And it's like me really wants respect for you every day.

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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.

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Yeah, you guys are getting paid tons and tons and tons, you know.

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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.

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They're getting share options.

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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,

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you know, who are every everyday. Bucket for you.

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Like, how can you take these people and throw them away and go, actually, you know, your bills don't matter in your lifetime?

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You know what I mean is, is that delivery. That's the only thing that matters.

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And I think that's that's what it showed.

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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.

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It is the fact that we were so like our time and ah ah ah energy wasn't actually worth anything.

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The only thing that was of value to them was the food getting from A to B,

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not the fact that that person who's doing that has a life as all who has to has to make

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enough money and has to do all of these things just to get by just like everybody else.

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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.

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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.

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Riders came together and worked in collaboration with representatives from the trade union,

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the independent workers of Great Britain, to develop a set of demands and elect representatives.

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So we communicate to delivery.

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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.

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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.

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We'll speak to, you know. Yeah.

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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.

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Maybe kind of agree to the points that we had. And I think with like four or five or 10 points up yet.

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And then they went up and spoke to them. And then there was like, no no real kind of movement.

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They were saying how like, oh, yeah, we'll speak to people individually, you know, we'll speak to people individually.

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They really refused to accept the collective aspects.

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You know, they wanted to speak to us as an individual unit.

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You know, that individual powerless unit, you know, as you are by yourself, like you don't feel powerful at all,

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you know, but they just they refused to accept the fact that we were talking as a collective.

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They refused to accept the fact that the people there had decided that this person would give them the authority.

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You know, we've agreed these points. These are the points we agree on. You know, we want these things to happen.

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This person speaks for the authority for all of us. You know, we are we have delegates as our representative in the remove you.

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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.

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We just refused to accept that that collective voice that a person spoke with.

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At the start of the strike, there was no official trade union involved, him representing delivery riders at a large scale.

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So you saw that strike initially was called by drivers and free zones. Right.

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So there was a TKD Hampstead at Belsize with the drivers and those free zones who took no action, like by themselves.

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So that day would you had that existing community and I had people who were like leaders who people knew,

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everyone knew, and everyone's like respected and spoke to kind of who were able to mobilise people.

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As the strike progressed, riders moved to establish official trade union representation through the IWG lobby by

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joining their courier and logistics branch under the European Convention of Human Rights.

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All workers are entitled to union recognition.

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However, this does not extend to those that self-employed delivery riders are classed as self-employed independent contractors,

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and therefore delivery is not obliged to recognise the right for a trade union to represent a body of workers.

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So once we were in the Bronx and we were organised as members of the union delivery stood out,

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except kind of that collective that the authority did not recognise the authority of a collective voice like it anyway.

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Even now, you know, even up to now,

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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,

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because it's just because it's quicker to get a response than it's easier to get a

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response in time for them to act as themselves rather than trying to go to Sri Lanka.

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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.

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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.

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It's not through a collective conversation.

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With respect, on both sides talk like it's it's it's delivery,

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dragging their feet and having to be taken through the court of public opinion and the pressure on Congress that to change,

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I think meaningfully should a bit [INAUDIBLE]. To be honest, I don't really know if there's a better way to phrase it.

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It's just kind of sucks. You know, it's like I call you know,

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we've got to through Will especially kind of when you when you when you spent take time strike organisers always just like,

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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.

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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.

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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.

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You know, I shouldn't have to like I collectively, we shouldn't have to go out and strike and boycott and picket,

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do all of these things because like just acknowledge the fact that, you know, we're here.

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You see that we're here because we turn up at your office to cause mayhem, because you won't speak to us.

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Just speak to us, you know, and it's just it's just it's just.

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Yeah, it's it's just imperious. It's everything. Would it anything. It's just like common like for real.

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How else do you want us to prove the fact that this is what we're saying and you need to listen to us.

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You know, you should be like we shouldn't have to do that.

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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.

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I got I got outside. You know, I've got all these just they're just ignoring like a moment, like for real,

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you know, I would like to get somebody from a terror out to listen to. And that's essentially what it's like.

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It's like when you're in a classroom or listen to music,

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you have to you have to be that kid in the corner there smashing up the table until he listens to you.

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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.

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We've been told off. I'm an adult who's at work, you know, like treat me with a beard to court.

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Ultimately, the strikes were unsuccessful. And after several weeks, riders went back to work without their demands being met.

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Delivery would go on to implement a piece rate system of payment for all riders on a permanent basis.

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However, the IWG be to this day, it's a powerful force campaigning for the rights of careers in the gig economy.

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For Mohanned, the shift to piecework ultimately led him to leave career work.

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That was the point where I felt like we were getting pushed to go quicker and take more risks than that.

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I really should have, you know. And that, yeah, it's just it's just that shift from hourly to piece rate,

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just the level of stress induces in people is so hard to imagine unless you're in that situation.

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Thanks to Mohan beeswax for sharing his story. For workers to meaningfully have a voice in determining their working conditions,

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they must be able to bargain with the platform for collective or representative body at Fair Work.

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We believe that all work can and should be characterised by fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts,

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fair management and fair representation platforms ultimately have the power to improve standards and the ability to choose.

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In the UK, the structure of gig work means that platforms have no legal obligation to recognise trade unions and other representative organisations.

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The platforms can improve the work they provide by taking a proactive approach to representation,

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recognising existing organisations where they do exist,

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encouraging their development where they don't, and entering into negotiations in good faith at Fair Work.

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We're actively campaigning to improve the conditions for gig workers around the world and hold platforms to account.

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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.