A number of couriers have lifted the lid on what it is like working for delivery company Evri and it seems there are a fair few unhappy workers on their payroll.
One such employee works for the firm in Manchester and has revealed a tale of low pay, harsh working conditions and poor morale among his colleagues, reports the Manchester Evening News.
Recently at a depot in south Manchester, tensions become so bad that some drivers were involved in a stand-off with bosses. They said they “grafted hard” over Christmas to help clear a huge backlog, but when changes to their routes were implemented, that tipped them over the edge.
Craig, which isn’t his real name, claims drivers are being forced to work harder and more hours for less pay and are in danger of having their rounds cut, but Evri deny this insisting all their couriers earn in excess of the minimum wage, which includes time for collection and re-delivery.
He also says he feels he has to work six days a week otherwise he will lose his round, but again Evri countered this by saying drivers are able to choose how many parcels they deliver and in what time frame.
Craig says his experience of the job has got “progressively worse” and claims the first few hours of his shift are spent “exposed to the elements” as he and fellow drivers are forced to load their cars without any shelter from the weather, come rain or shine.
Evri says couriers have access to rain shelters, but Craig and other drivers claim this isn’t the case. He gets to the depot around 8.15am, but he says often the deliveries don’t arrive until 9.30am or later.
“By the time you’ve sorted the parcels you’ve been there for two hours without getting paid, getting absolutely soaked if it’s raining or standing in the boiling sunshine,” he revealed. “The other week it was snowing and the parcels all got wet.
“As soon as the customer came to the door the bottom just fell out and it’s just embarrassing and makes us look bad.”
On the subject of his customers, he added: “Luckily I have quite a good thing going where I deliver and people have my number so I can let them know updates, but you’ll always get someone who will make it difficult.
“Some people will refuse to leave the shed open or things like that. They want it in their hands, but then they are never in.”
Evri says that when petrol costs spiked they introduced an additional fuel payment, which was “tailored for round types”. But Craig says for him, this only amounted to an extra £8 a month.
Evri has previously apologised for delays experienced by many customers over Christmas, citing staff shortages, Royal Mail strikes and bad weather. Craig claims his own local depot saw a mass exodus of drivers during the festive period due to working conditions and pay.
Several couriers at the south Manchester depot said the backlog of Christmas parcels, which totalled around 16,000, was only cleared days ago. Evri says it hired an extra 5,000 staff over the festive period to help clear the backlog.
Another driver, who has worked for Evri for several years, says it’s the “worst job he’s ever had”, but claims he’s found it impossible to find work elsewhere. The courier, whose name has been changed to Richard, said he “works hard for not a lot of money”.
He said: “Everyone is always just thinking ‘oh my parcel is late’, but it’s not that simple. We have to manually load our car and then walk around the houses.
“The pay is awful. We have to stand in the rain and cold for 40 minutes every morning sorting the parcels without getting paid.
“It’s the worst job I’ve ever done in my life, but there is nothing else out there for us.
“I earn about £800 a month, but that’s before petrol and my phone bill and all the other bills I have to pay. Sometimes it feels like we are slaves.”
Another courier working in Manchester added: “They advertise it as a job to suit your lifestyle, but you end up just doing what suits them. If you are young and you have lots of bills to pay you’d have to work very long hours to earn enough.”
Couriers at the south Manchester depot, who claim they normally deliver on average over 150 parcels a day, say in the last few days they’ve arrived to find just a few dozen parcels allocated to them, meaning they say they will earn less than £20 a round. They claim they won’t be able to survive on this and there were chaotic scenes outside the unit in Wythenshawe last week, as a group of angry couriers refused to pick up parcels as they demanded answers over what was happening.
What Evri says
A spokesperson said: “We are unable to respond to anonymous allegations about specific disputes or even verify that these individuals work for Evri without their details. However, we can confirm that as our couriers are self-employed, they are able to choose the number of parcels they deliver and the time frame they do it.
“If couriers are unable to do their round for any reason we have cover couriers in place and over the Christmas period we added another 5,000 to offer support.
“All our couriers earn in excess of the minimum wage after expenses such as fuel costs (the average is over £15 an hour) and this includes time for collection and redelivery. This is independently audited by the GMB Union.”
In response to the recent dispute in Wythenshawe, a spokesperson for the firm added: “We are in discussions with a small number of couriers at one of our local delivery units who are unhappy with some changes to delivery rounds we have implemented.”
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