Cycle couriers plan protest against piece-rate pay
Deliveroo cycle couriers have announced a protest at the Museumplein in Amsterdam on 14 November. Deliveroo wants to cancel employment contracts for 2,000 workers and hire them on bogus self-employment contracts, trade union FNV Riders Union claims.
«We don’t have the ambition to ride our bicycles as so-called self-employed workers and that’s why we’re standing up for ourselves. We just want to work and earn money», courier Daan Dorr said last month.
According to Frederique Zebeda of the youth section of FNV, FNV Jong, the new construction will save Deliveroo thousands of euros per rider per year. «All risks will be shifted to the couriers and they will be paid according to an old-fashioned piece-rate system.» The union says couriers should be covered by the collective agreement of the goods traffic sector.
In Germany, cycle couriers are organising protests too, and in London, couriers went on strike to fight the introduction of zero-hours contracts. They used crowd funding to create a strike fund.