THE dangers facing gig workers in the city of Edinburgh have been exposed in a new survey of food delivery riders.
Over the last three months, a group of Deliveroo riders have undertaken research aiming to learn about the working conditions in the city.
Organised and supported by the Workers’ Observatory, a worker-driven research collective, the survey is part of a project to cast light on the reality that platform workers face every day.
They found that 30% of workers have been in an accident while doing food delivery, while almost half have had their bike or vehicle stolen.
The survey is part of a wider project exposing how well-known big tech companies, such as Deliveroo and Uber, use AI-driven systems to drive down rates paid to workers and threaten to deactivate workers’ accounts for minor delays in deliveries.
Over one in four riders say their account has been blocked or deactivated by a food delivery app at some point.
Accounts are deactivated on the basis of alleged breaches of terms and conditions, such as if riders are late for a delivery, regardless of whether the delay is through no fault of their own, such as closed roads or traffic congestion. This is especially concerning for the two-thirds of respondents who depend on food delivery work as their only source of income.
One rider explained: "They time you for every second you are working, and if the time you take doesn’t match with the time they think it should take, you are at risk of deactivation.”
Riders seldom get a proper explanation for the account blocking from the company, which provides the same automated response every time. There is no proper channel for communicating, and reversing the decision is often impossible.
The rider continued: “JustEat tells us it has a system to appeal within six weeks. When my account was cancelled, I sent an email, got an automated reply, and then heard nothing more. I sent 33 emails and they never got back to me.”
Two-thirds of the people who answered the survey think that they have not received tips that customers have paid through the apps. Ten per cent of them think that this happens all the time.
The survey also revealed the particularly bad restaurants that workers deliver from. Pepe’s Piri Piri is the main offender, with 40% of survey respondents complaining about long waits and rude behaviour, while Ting Thai and Pizza Express were also the subject of major grievances.
The project culminates in a launch event taking place today at Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh, where workers will introduce the results of their inquiry into their conditions, and present the main findings of a forthcoming report that lays down a new agenda for empowering workers and regulating gig work in Edinburgh.
Workers’ Observatory organiser Xabier Villares said: “Through collective inquiry, food delivery riders have gained an understanding of how giant on-demand delivery platforms are deploying algorithmically managed systems and other AI technologies to control their work. The power imbalance between workers and the company has led to extremely long shifts, pay discrimination, and chronic precarity.
“These conditions exacerbate the challenges and hazards facing gig workers whose work involves navigating the streets of Edinburgh at break-neck speed to satisfy the metrics and meet the demands of platforms that are profiting from the workers’ precarity.
“Understanding the operation of these platforms is part of the process of pushing back against the exploitative and unregulated systems that affect a growing number of Scotland’s workers. It is a step towards building the collective power to bargain and organise.”
