Gig Workers Are Losing Their Hard-Won Rights

Not all of Just Eat's orange-clad couriers were switched to salaried contracts, and the company did not use self-employed gig workers to fulfill some of its orders. Workers and unions have four months to fight the restructure. Rioux expects gig workers to replace the contracts that are lost if they lose. He wants to go from being a Just Eat employee to a gig worker for Stuart. Stuart couriers have no rights, they are paid per delivery, and social protection is low. Stuart didn't want to say anything.

There are other countries where the gig workers' rights are being rolled back. Gorillas, a grocery delivery app that promised not to use gig workers from the beginning, is shutting down. In places like Belgium, the retreat of the Gorillas means that the company's fixed employment contracts and insurance are no longer valid. When another German delivery company, Jokr, left the US in June, it was the same thing.

Workers in countries where the employee model is still alive are being pressured to do more. Just Eat employees in Paris who don't expect their employment contracts to be affected by the restructure are already experiencing changes. One Paris-based courier told WIRED that before December, Paris was divided into zones. Everything came together in January. Everything has changed. I get orders from the other side of the city. He can cycle more than 50 kilometers per day and end up 20 kilometers away from home by the end of his shift, according to him.

In Germany, the company has submitted a proposal to the local works council to give the fastest 25 percent of its workers access to better shifts.

Europe is ahead of the US in terms of platform worker protections, and the European Commission is working on new rules to govern the platform economy. Even if riders win guarantees that they will earn a minimum wage, the dynamics of the rapid delivery sector make it hard to hold on to those gains. She says that workers have no capacity to retain any of the protections they have been given because the companies are so unfair with their distribution of power.

The contradictions of the gig economy continue. Some workers rights advocates wonder if the economics of the delivery sector mean good working conditions can ever be found there. She hasn't seen an example. Can it be done? She said yes. There are a lot of crazy things happening.