“Platforms are better than paying fines than complying with driver law”

On August 12, 2021 – just a year ago – the Government’s grace period for platforms to enforce the rule ended. After more than 365 days Glovo still has a mostly fake self-employed fleet. The Catalan company has exploded in the market due to the anger of its competitors such as Uber Eats, who have denounced Glovo, and has recently threatened to offer the Government the option to make deliveries on its own. The Department of Labor announced it would be very difficult to comply with the standard, but Uber sent a letter warning to Minister Yolanda Díaz: “Should we follow the Glovo model?”

“If there is a company that does not pay social security, does not allow, does not give minimum wage to its employees and the state does nothing, it will obviously provide the cheapest service, but at the expense of exploiting the workers. Uber’s position makes sense, it’s pressuring the government to do something because it’s unfair competition,” said Adrián Todolí, a professor at the University of Valencia (UV) specializing in labor law.

In fact, something was done; Glovo has already faced several million-dollar fines for having fake self-employed workers, but as Todolí warns, “it’s much better for the platform to pay fines than to comply with driver law and change the model.” That’s why the labor law expert claims change the sanction system to these companies so that the penalties are truly deterrent. “It’s like cases of football players bypassing restrictions in the pandemic and the fines they put on them were one day of their pay, they didn’t care about their pay,” he explains.

subcontracted fleets

Another of the formulas digital platforms came up with to avoid rider law was: you are subcontracting. Companies like Stuart, Delivers, Delorean began to sprout in cities where their own “self-employed” deliverers were working for them after the driver’s law passed. The reality is that fleets of platforms like Uber have been nurtured by these secondary companies, or in some cases, Temporary Employment Companies (ETTs) rather than hiring their deliverers.

This situation Eat only in Valencia city, ETT “JY Hiring” used as a delivery man to employees. The Provincial Inspectorate of Labor and Social Security forced the digital platform to hire 150 delivery people as workers, following a complaint filed by the CNT union last July.

Antonio Ruiz is the Labor attorney who handled the case, and said, “many companies, after the publication of the driver’s law, moved their fleet to temporary employment agencies or subcontractors“. The case of Glovo, which from the beginning explicitly refused to comply with the law, saw new mechanisms that sought to remove this “presumption of employment” from the text of the law. It was billed directly with restaurants and the parent company did not,” Ruiz says. The lawyer also explains that the Department of Labor has warned bars and restaurants that use passengers as delivery people that they may be subject to illegality.

Another challenge in enforcing the norm is that justice is too slow. “Because it was the labor inspection that interfered processes take a long time, it can be two or three years. And when the fine came out, the company had already made enough profits to pay the fine and more,” explains Todolí, missing a change in fines. David, who belongs to the CGT union, explains the case. the audit is still investigating the old one, they no longer use it and we won’t start with that until it’s gone,” he denounced.

Fast, cheap and at home

This is how David explains it in the Glovo example: only recruits workers from their supermarkets as store staff, and not deliverers. “This may represent only 20% of the workforce on the payroll,” he explains. Known as ghost supermarkets, these establishments are warehouses scattered across cities with staff preparing customers’ orders.

This model has grown a lot with rider law and has had a huge expansion with the advent of companies like the following. Gorillas and Bring Promising “ultra-fast delivery” and get the order to your home in “less than ten minutes”. These companies, which made money by purchasing supermarkets within minutes, recently went down, but a year later announced that many stores were laid off and closed in Valencia and Spain. The gorillas announced that they had left the country and that Getir continued to operate, although there were fewer deliverers.

With such low prices, this service is only possible at the expense of workers’ rights. As Todolí explains, “this is a luxury service. You can’t pay three euros if you want breakfast delivered to your home from the stylish restaurant on Sunday morning.. It can be done, but it makes sense to increase the price of the service, and if it doesn’t, at the expense of exploiting workers and underpaying,” he denounced.

David criticizes the government “He made a law but he doesn’t enforce it and that gives you legitimacy on the ground.”. For trade unionists, the text is “incomplete” and he criticizes that “what we’ve seen lately with Glovo and Uber Eats is a blow to democracy, what it shows is that these multinational corporations have more power than the government of a country.” At least they can stand up to him.”