Workers of the world are uniting to support Palestinian liberation. Most recently, the 100,000 workers part of the International Alliance of App-Based Transport Workers (IAATW) declared a boycott of Chevron, an American oil and gas company, because of its role in profiting off of and perpetuating Israeli apartheid.
No institution in Serbia keeps records of how many delivery workers are injured at work, as stated in the podcast “Delivery Couriers and Traffic Safety – The Price of Risk.” Nevertheless, it’s evident from media headlines, which are significantly fewer than the actual number of such incidents, that delivery workers often face accidents and mishaps while on duty.
Based on Mašina’s findings, part of the foreign workers who make deliveries through the Wolt app are denied the opportunity to see their actual earnings and to choose the deliveries they will work on. In this way, these workers are left with fixed wages, previously agreed on with the intermediary agency, which puts them in an unequal position compared to local delivery workers.
Last week, the “challenge” was terminated for part of the couriers people who work through the Glovo application. As a result, these workers are being deprived of realizing part of their earnings, which are based on completing a certain number of deliveries. Glovo claims it fired these workers because they “misused” the application – but what constitutes misuse and according to whom?
Workers engaged at Uber, Bolt, Glovo and similar platforms formed a trade union to fight for the rights guaranteed by the Labour Law of the Republic of Croatia.
Platform workers in Eastern European countries face similar problems like their colleagues in Serbia. Does the forming of the first trade unions and other workers’ organizations suggest a possibility of international organizing?
Aware that their services are needed during the outbreak of coronavirus, the Glovo App delivery workers keep driving. They ask no dedication award from the company, but demand to be fairly paid and that their wages return to their January levels – to that end they have started organizing.
