Deliveroo and Uber Eats ‘must protect workers’ during riots

Deliveroo, Uber Eats, Just Eat and other aggregator apps are being called upon to better care for and compensate riders working in areas impacted by the far-right rioting across the UK in recent days.

Violent disorder has been suffered in multiple towns and cities since last Tuesday, with more than 400 people having now been arrested for their involvement.

According to Worker Info Exchange, gig economy workers have been targeted in several cities, with drivers attacked and their vehicles vandalised or destroyed, “for no reason other than the colour of their skin”.

“Delivery and private-hire workers are a highly visible, exposed, and predominantly racialised workforce who are easy targets for attack. Yet the platform employers remained silent while their workers faced the storm,” the non-profit worker advocacy organisation said.

The group has urged the aggregator apps to suspend all deliveries during times and within three miles of the locations of civil unrest, and compensate workers for “lost income or damaged property”.

“These platforms boast of the capacity to constantly monitor market supply and demand to set variable prices in real time. Now, this same capability must be used to monitor the safety of their workers in real time,” Worker Info Exchange added.

Gig worker union the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) has similarly called for compensation for riders.

“Many of our members are migrants and racialised workers who experience racism on a day-to-day basis, and are now highly at risk,” the union said in a statement.

“People are afraid to go out in public, to send their children to school or to go to work. Workers in the gig economy, a majority racialised workforce who do not enjoy the same rights that regular employees do, are being forced to make the impossible decision of going out to work in dangerous areas and becoming a target of violence, or forfeiting the income they need to pay their bills and feed their families,” the IWGB added.

One rider, speaking anonymously from Rochdale where homes and businesses suffered looting and destruction in rioting at the weekend, said: “I don’t feel safe going out to work anymore.

“Because of the colour of my skin, because of my chosen faith, I’m terrified to leave my house, knowing I could be targeted by thugs and put in harm’s way. I feel like I have no choice but to stay at home with my family and sacrifice my income in favour of our safety,” they added. “The government and gig platforms have a duty to protect us from harm.”

Worker Info Exchange is particularly fearful for riders given the rhetoric from the previous Conservative government Home Office that the apps were “being abused by illegal workers”.

Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats in April agreed to introduce “enhanced security checks” after pressure from the Home Office to do more to ensure substitute riders – which can be appointed by couriers to use their account and make deliveries – had the legal right to work in the UK.

Late last year, then immigration minister Robert Jenrick said unchecked account sharing placed “the public at risk, enables – and therefore encourages – illegal migration, and leads to the exploitation of workers”.

“When someone orders a takeaway to their home, they deserve to know the person arriving at their door has been properly vetted and is who they’re expecting,” he added.”fanning the flames of racism by suggesting that migrant delivery workers are a danger to the public” in agreement with the Home Office, despite being “fully aware that undocumented people could be acting as substitutes. Their entire business model relies on readily available, low-paid, underprotected, migrant labour – of any citizenship status”.

“Now, the risk is too grave, and platform employers must take action to protect their workers in times of civil unrest,” Worker Info Exchange said.