Digital platform couriers stop tonight for better working conditions – Society

Couriers from digital delivery platforms such as Uber Eats, Glovo and Bolt Food will stop this Friday night in the main Portuguese cities, demanding an increase in the base payment for delivery and better working conditions.

To Lusa, Marcel Borges, spokesperson for the ‘Restafetas em Luta’ movement, explained that it is “a strike and not a strike because there are no employment contracts”, nor any union “in the mix”, intending to be at national level raise awareness among workers about the conditions in which they carry out their activities.

“We are going to raise awareness among colleagues at the main points where they gather to wait for delivery orders, such as shopping centers, fast food chains”, said Marcel Borges, a lawyer who has also been a courier for around four years, after having had experience as a TVDE driver.

Among the reasons for the stop, between 6pm and midnight this Friday, Marcel Borges mentioned the requirement for a minimum payment of three euros per delivery, in addition to an additional 50 cents per kilometer traveled over distances of up to 4.9 kilometers and an extra euro for deliveries within a radius of more than five kilometers.

Currently, according to Marcel Borges, couriers earn between 80 cents and 1.20 euros on each delivery, which means “they have to work many hours” to obtain a reasonable amount.

The ‘Relays in Fight’ movement also aims to prevent “triple orders”, in order to avoid the same courier traveling to three different spaces to collect meals for the same customer.

The couriers also defend the existence of “transparency in the App [aplicação]”, considering that “each payment and procedure, base payment, collection and delivery locations, moment of ‘acceptance’, partial and total mileage, each extra from the company, each tip, ‘online’ courier time must be detailed” .

The couriers also want an end to “persecution of workers and direct lines with the company”, reminding Marcel Borges that couriers are often blocked from applying and prevented from working without knowing the real reason for this situation.

The 42-year-old lawyer also highlighted that working as a platform courier or TVDE driver are “very precarious” activities and, as he is also knowledgeable about labor laws, he decided to ‘give his face’ in this fight.

Still according to Marcel Borges, despite being an activity in which it is easy to work and many couriers prefer not to have employment contracts, there is “a minority of couriers who want contracts and are taking complaints to the courts, which are not heard”.

As for expectations regarding participation in the protest, Marcel Borges said that it is “always a big surprise”, and there may be “a great participation or not”.

“It will be a peaceful strike, without violence, mainly to raise awareness among couriers to support better working conditions in their future”, he highlighted.

According to the official, it will be the second strike this year, after the one organized in February, for the same reasons.

In 2022, the couriers held a first protest, in the city of Porto, which had the support of the Union of Hotel, Tourism, Restaurant and Similar Industry Workers of the North.

To Lusa, union leader Francisco Figueiredo explained that, after having provided support in the first two strikes, no help was requested from the union for today’s protest.

“Since 2016, we have carried out actions to demand the existence of collective employment contracts for these workers and others in similar situations who work for others, that collective contracting be applied”, he explained, remembering that the couriers who work for Telepizza and for PizzaHut they have employment contracts and, therefore, “more rights, better wages and holidays” compared to others.

According to Francisco Figueiredo, platform couriers “are greatly exploited by multinationals”, although “many of them” have “the idea that they are better off with green receipts”.

“We are not organizing this movement, but we support the fight for collective labor contracting because it would protect these workers more”, highlighted Francisco Figueiredo.

In November, the Minister of Labor and Social Security stated, in parliament, that 1,000 actions were underway to recognize the employment contracts of digital platform workers in an irregular employment situation.