Just Eat drivers in Scotland are being being left penniless after being unfairly “deactivated”, union bosses claim.
Drivers with the the global fast food giants have told how they are being removed from the app that allocates work for the courier site. They also claim they have been given no chance to discuss the “unfair treatment” as the automated system involves few staff looking after personnel issues.
Couriers are not regarded as employees meaning they have few employment rights.
Anne McLaughlin, MP for Glasgow North East, said: “I find the way Just Eat couriers are being routinely dismissed and deactivated, essentially by a machine, completely unfair and unjust. There is a cost of living crisis and people are doing their best just to get by, Just Eat are robbing people of their livelihood at a time when they really need that income.”
She added: “Rather than have a proper appeals process, which would require staff and cost money, they have their own system of internal reviews - essentially marking their own homework. It’s simply not good enough. You can’t let a machine sack someone and subsequently offer no chance to appeal that decision or explain their side of the story.”
The App Drivers and Couriers Union claims delivery companies deliberately use many more drivers than they need - then can terminate whoever they like at no cost to the business.
Reasons for deactivation include:
•Drivers moving outside restaurants like McDonald to await deliveries (often at the restaurant’s request). Many claim to have been falsely accused of fraud, as a GPS tracker tells Just eat they have left the job.
•Couriers forgetting to input an update on a job - like starting, leaving, delivering etc. These simple errors can allegedly lead to fraud accusations and summary deactivation.
•Using third party software like Shift Grabber to automatically reserve shifts. These have resulted in warnings that advanced to permanent deactivation without any further discussion.
James Farrar, General Secretary of the ADCU, said hundreds of drivers have been affected, mainly sacked by computer programmes that analyse GPS locational services and other data.
He said: “This is a horror show. We have witnessed the growth of a massive work environment where people are being treated like numbers, and like commodities that can be discarded at will.
“They will wake up one morning and find out they have been deactivated summarily, with no procedure and no redress. We believe there is a 40 per cent over supply of drivers and couriers across the board and this is immoral, as it’s a no-lose for the big companies that control everything.
“They can effectively secure the services of a courier, who must compete with others for the shifts. They suffer undue stress yet the company has no outlay and no risk in having a massive, excess workforce on stand-by to generate profit for them.
“This has led to many people using apps like Shift Grabber, which subsequently results in a warning being issued by Just Eat.
“In many instances, with no further action or investigation, this is followed by deactivation from the app, which can be catastrophic to any person relying on it for work.”
Farrar said the courier world is set up to favour the big companies running the show, while couriers are treated not acknowledged to be employees and therefore have few rights. He said deactivated drivers are now buying access to accounts on the black market, which the ACDU claims risks exposure to modern slavery and exploitation through cut price deliveries.
Underpinning the exploitation, Farrar claims, is the fact couriers are regarded as contractors and not employees.
Farrar said: “This is important in understanding why there is no appeal, as Just Eat will not want to be seen to act as an employer, as this would destroy their business model.
“The failure to give people a proper right to a hearing also enables them to run their operation with few staff. But this all adds up to exploitation of people who desperately need to maintain their livelihoods.”
Cansu Safak, of the Worker Info Exchange, which fights for couriers’ rights, said he had dealt with almost 100 cases of deactivation but expects there are many times more.
He said: “The deactivations we are seeing are the clear result of delivery companies turning to unchallengeable automation for the management of their workforces. Couriers are routinely dismissed because the GPS data showed them step outside of a restaurant and when they try to explain themselves, there’s no one there to listen.”
A Just Eat spokesperson said the company would investigate the claims made in the Record.
The spokesperson said: “We take any concerns raised by couriers on our network seriously and will investigate and take action as needed if a courier feels they have been wrongly deactivated.
"At Just Eat, it is important to ensure fairness for all couriers delivering on our behalf.
“This is why we have measures and systems in place to identify and stop fraudulent activity on our platform and when couriers have breached the terms of their courier service agreement."
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