A cyclist pedals along the bike lane on Calle Diputación in Barcelona and stops a meter and a half at a red light instead of crossing the usual crosswalk line. The pedal let a few tourists pass behind the garish rental bikes and go at a leisurely pace. He deliberately stopped the first wheel of his vehicle exactly where the shadow of a banana tree ended, thus avoiding waiting for the green in the sun at two in the afternoon. She carries a backpack from the home delivery app on her back glovo and possibly take the food to someone waiting with the air conditioner on.
“We work more than six hours constantly. I usually start early to avoid the hottest hours but it’s not even ten in the morning and you’re already sweating. You can stop the delivery at noon, but you won’t be entering anything. Also Glovo puts the highest bonuses [paga más las horas] between one and five in the afternoon. It’s a way of forcing us to be at those mealtimes,” she says. CGT.
Wearing long-sleeved shirts is common among ‘riders’, although the warmth may at first glance invite you to wear as little clothing as possible. It is to avoid burns that spread for hours under the sun. “I either wear a long-sleeved shirt or I’m going to want to peel my skin off the next day,” says Joaquín, another delivery person. “Dehydration, fatigue, and sunburn are the negatives we often find ourselves with on these hot days,” says David.
Sources consulted from both CGT and CCOO describe the fleets’ deliverers at the companies they outsource. Uber Food anyone Stuart They don’t provide sunscreens or shelter from the heat. Neither are water bottles. And in Glovo’s ghost supermarkets, the rest area, where ‘riders’ await orders to take him home, is often too small for all the delivery men gathered together, and there is neither air conditioning nor a fan. .
sultry uniforms
other companies such as bring They hire their direct deliverers to make ultra-fast deliveries from ghost supermarkets. The problem they have from CCOO is that the employees do not have summer uniforms and have to go out for distribution in a thick jacket that shows the brand and the company’s purple color. The protection the uniform provides against drops (and the commercial claim it represents) collides with the heat from pedaling or handing it to a motorcycle when they place a few orders in the sun. “Many of them open their jackets to breathe better when they’re a bit away from the stores, but they can be scolded or punished if a superior sees them,” they say from the CCOO. The same sources that set up a works council a few weeks ago confirm that they have asked the company to provide them with a summer uniform that is lighter and adapted to higher midday temperatures.