PLEASE SHARE AND DONATE IF YOU CAN (Donation link here: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/deliverjustice/ )
Following the direct action of 2016, and the following legal case, the Independent Workers’ of Great Britain are taking Deliveroo and the CAC (Central Arbitration Committee) to court to overturn their ruling that bogus ‘substitution’ clauses & loop-holes can be used by a company to deny workers of worker rights.
The judge initially found that there was indeed an appetite for Deliveroo riders to unionise, sufficient to establish a bargaining unit – however, had to begrudgingly find in favour of Deliveroo, based on questionable testimony.
This announcement comes on the same day that Deliveroo has declared that it will give £5,000 in shares to its permanent employees (however, it is important to note that none of the workforce of riders and motorcyclists that actually deliver the food will receive these benefits) and highlights the growing inequality and casualization that is rife among almost all sectors of the economy.
Just has our universities see benefits rise to the bosses at the top, whilst pensions are simultaneously crushed and casual contracts destabilise the power of the workforce – these same trends of labour marginalisation are manifest in the gig-economy. We are – as I am sure many of you are aware – at a cross-roads in the development in the gig-economy. Critical test cases – such as the one the IWGB are fundraising for – will be the steer for how the gig-economy shapes-up and ultimately will have huge impacts for the economy more broadly.
Deliveroo are saddling the IWGB with legal debt to silence and destroy them. Backed by venture capital giants, Deliveroo are flexing their financial muscles in an attempt to crush worker resistance and spirit.
However, it doesn’t have to be this way. We can all help in the attempt to restore agency to workers and their collective rights by donating to the CrowdJustice page(available here: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/deliverjustice/ ) and by sharing this information as widely as possible.
