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Who are the riders: not just kids, but fathers of families

“It is no longer the time to say they are slaves but it is time to say that they are citizens”. The Milan prosecutor Francesco Greco presented the investigation into the riders in Milan, an investigation work done in silence, but with an impressive result: there are 60 thousand workers who would be entitled to contracts that they do not have and which were fundamental in the period of lockdown, delivering food to citizens’ homes allowed “many businesses not to close”.

The investigation was initiated by the prosecutor starting from injuries following road accidents.

Fines of € 733 million have been received for violating occupational health and safety regulations. Six employers from four companies are under investigation: Just Eat (which has already announced in March 2021 the first hiring of riders in Italy with a similar classification to that of couriers), Uber Eats, Glovo and Deliveroo. Minutes were sent to the companies with which the hiring of about 60 thousand workers throughout Italy is required. Companies will have 90 days to comply.

Who are these sixty thousand workers? Who are the riders? There is no portrait of them in the statistics to tell them you need the experience of the trade unions. «Very often the difference in the type of worker is a geographical difference. There are different workers based on the city, ”he explains Silvia Simoncini, National Secretary NIdiL (New Work Identities) CGIL.

How does this territorial difference arise?
«The rider phenomenon has developed differently based on the social composition of the cities. Bologna and Florence have a prevalence of young workers, often university students. Naples and Palermo instead have a strong presence of workers expelled from the labor market, who have previous professional skills, but who, first of all due to the crisis and then the pandemic, found themselves living or surviving by being riders. In Rome and Milan there is a strong presence of migrant workers ».

How do these workers get to be riders?
«In addition to those who have lost their jobs and reinvented themselves as riders, there is also the phenomenon of the impoverishment of the world of work in absolute terms. There are people who have another occupation, which does not allow them to survive. The rider is often a second job that allows you to get to the end of the month ».

Which are the numbers?
«The trend has been growing for 3 years. Before the pandemic we estimated 30,000 riders, but the pandemic has accelerated the increase (so much so that the Milanese investigation doubles this number ed): on the one hand due to the loss of other jobs in this period and on the other for the increase of the request that there was evidently. The increase in workers was not proportional to the increase in demand. Many workers have been placed on the platforms that individual riders, while increasing the demands, have worked less. With so many on the street, you risk making fewer deliveries. With competing workers, per capita income is lowered ».

Do you earn enough to live?
“You don’t earn enough to live, but you can earn to survive. However, it is done by exposing oneself to great risks: the compensation is linked to how many deliveries are made, to chase compensation you run on the street on a scooter or bicycle. Added to this is the fact that the means are not the employer’s, but personal and this leads to reactions such as that of the person attacked in Naples who fought to protect his scooter. It is the risk linked to the fact that these workers are considered self-employed ».

What are the possible protections?
«There is a law that would have granted riders some protections such as the Inail accident prevention insurance. In addition to this, objectively, there is nothing else because many are occasional autonomous collaborators who do not pay contributions because this contractual form is exempt from contributions up to 5 thousand euros. This absence of contributions also leads to an absence of protection, from illness to maternity for the many women who are riders. VAT numbers are paid for contributions and protections, they do not have them from the company.

Did the case of Marco Tuttolomondo in Palermo, hired after filing a lawsuit, serve others?
«The case of Palermo remains a unique case because for now the sentence is only one. The right won by a worker with a cause is formally valid only for him. It does not automatically bring rights to others, even if a ruling of this magnitude helps from the point of view of collective bargaining. The sentence, however, says that the worker has the right to all the rights of the subordinate worker ”.

Is the rider a job for life?
“For some it could be a job for life, but, regardless of this, the job must still be protected. For us, the permanent hiring is adaptable to the position of the rider. If he wants to change his job, he can do so by resigning. We asked ourselves the same question when call centers were born in the nineties and for twenty years now there have been people who continue to do so even if for many others it was a temporary job ».

Can we call it a new job?
«Until a few years ago it was not mass work, but since the Eighties we have had home deliveries, made in-house by pizzerias and restaurants. The modality, the external platform, not the activity is new. Deliveries were in black because the pizzeria had subordinate work as the only way to emerge. The platforms are not black because it is legally sustainable for them to have this army of self-employed workers ».

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