All repair costs covered!
As is typical in the “gig” economy, Foodora and Deliveroo are shifting the costs that they should bear onto us. We are expected to use our own phones and ride our own bikes around the city for hours on end in all weather conditions. Clearly, this takes a huge toll on our personal equipment. Yet we are expected to cover the costs of this wear-and-tear ourselves, and do repairs in our own time.
This is not acceptable! We demand that our employers cover all our operating and repair costs. This is not unreasonable. Wear and tear is a normal part of any business’s operating costs; it occurs during work hours and as a direct result of our work.
At least one euro extra per hour/drop!
Employers are paying the minimum they feel they can get away with. For most of us, this is barely enough to cover our costs of living, let alone save for pensions or provide for children or other people who depend on us.
What’s more, our job has a lot of risk and uncertainty. Riding in Berlin’s traffic is often a physically and psychologically demanding job, especially at night. Additionally, the freelancers among us get none of the benefits and protections of a traditional job. We are expected to make our own social insurance contibutions, which many of us can’t afford to. We also need to save enough to cover our own sick leave.
Therefore, we demand a reasonable pay increase of one euro per hour for employees, and one euro more per drop for freelancers. Let’s stand together to get what we deserve!
Enough guaranteed hours to make a living!
Even when there are already far more riders than shifts, both Foodora and Deliveroo keep hiring. This turns the flexibility promised by our employers into a farce: we have to struggle to get enough shifts to cover our most basic costs of living, whilst the company can be sure that enough riders will be willing to work at the most inconvenient times, securing their core business. The same problems have turned up in other app-based jobs like Uber, bringing about an environment that is pitching workers against each other in a race to the bottom. We need to stop this!
We therefore demand our employers guarantee that we get a minimum amount of hours! In line with what our colleagues in Brighton have achieved, we call for an immediate recruitment freeze!
Deliveroo: Transparency about the hours we have worked!
Any employee would want to make sure that their boss is paying them correctly, and riders are no exception. Every minute of every shift is tracked by the company app, but riders have no access to this information. If riders want to make sure they get paid enough they need to have access to the same information as the company. The lack of transparency in the current system means that any rider could easily be under-paid without anyone noticing. This is unacceptable! We demand transparency about our own working hours!
Foodora: At least one hour paid per week for shift planning!
At Foodora, riders are excepted to complete work-related tasks in their own free time. Specifically, the online algorithms and platforms can wrongly identify a rider as being late, or, most commonly, not give them enough shifts.
It is then the riders responsibility to make sure that these errors are amended and to look for free shifts. Since it is impossible to do this whilst riding a bike, riders end up doing it in their own free time.
We simply demand to be paid for all of the work we do for our employer, including organisational work!