An Edinburgh food delivery cyclist working for Uber Eats and Just Eat says she has been logging on to work for 60 hours a week, but has only been making £100. Alice Barker also said that with restaurants not allowing delivery riders to use their bathrooms during the coronavirus outbreak, she has resorted to trying not to drink any water during her shifts.
Barker told the BBC that with many restaurants closed and people often preferring to prepare food at home, there has been a shortage of work.
As she is paid per delivery, not per hour, this has had a significant impact on her earnings.
“If I’m waiting for an order and I don’t get one, then I’m not earning any money at all,” she said.
"A lot of people do assume that we are much busier now, but certainly for a lot of the push bikes, we're really struggling to make ends meet.
"The demand has just completely floored. Definitely a lot of the restaurants being closed has had an impact, and I think with people being at home, they are spending more time cooking and being at home.”
She added: "I've been logging on for over 60 hours a week, to get £100. I maybe wasn't even making that at the start of lockdown."
She said she was busier when KFC reopened. “I maybe made about £130 that week.”
Food chain workers, including those involved in delivery, have been classed as key workers during the coronavirus outbreak.
However, Barker says that while her employers have pushed for this, it isn’t reflected in her working conditions.
“We should not be having to work for that kind of time to make a living,” she said.
“These companies have all pushed for us to be classed as key workers. But it's really clear that this is about their interests, they haven't actually done anything to make us feel like we're key workers. We're actually quite disposable.
"It's just this weird feeling that we're key workers but no-one's actually looking after us. It feels like a really odd situation to be in."
She said that both Uber Eats and Just Eat had given advice on how to deliver in a socially distant way, but other than that there was a marked difference between what they’d said and what they’d actually done.
"They were going to give us some PPE – some masks and hand sanitiser. I know it's taken weeks for people to even get hold of any.
"And when they do arrive, we're being given single-use masks. How long are we meant to use that safely for?
"Also, with the restaurants, we're not able to just use the bathroom, whether that's to use the toilet or to wash our hands."
While the firms say they are offering sick pay should a delivery rider contract coronavirus, Barker points out these are the only circumstances where that would happen.
“Because we are classed as self-employed, we don’t have any access to sick pay if we were to become ill.
“They have said that they are providing sick pay if you get symptoms or you have to self-isolate, but the irony is that I could become ill for any other reason and I wouldn’t be able to access any sort of sick pay.”
A Just Eat spokesperson said: "We recognise that Covid-19 has brought huge uncertainty for many of the self-employed couriers in our network and have implemented a number of measures to help keep them safe.
"We've rolled out contact-free delivery procedures across our network, are supplying protective equipment to couriers and have asked all restaurants to keep hygiene facilities available to the couriers picking up their orders."
They also said the masks supplied to couriers were reusable.
An Uber Eats spokesperson said: "The safety of everyone using the Uber Eats app and preventing the spread of Covid-19 is a top priority.
"In the UK, Uber Eats has introduced a number of measures including contactless delivery as well as distributing over one million masks to drivers and couriers and over 50,000 hand sanitisers to couriers using the Uber Eats app."
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38 comments
So she could get £75 on the dole or work 60 hours a week to get £25 more? And cost of bike maintenance? Extra cost of food to fuel you? Money to compensate you for the danger?
These companies need to be held to account. If you have to pay extra for a delivery then so be it.
Something smells wrong here. Someone earning £100 a week is entitled to roughly £115 a week of in-work benefits, even if childless. With kids, the amount increases significantly. Also, demand for food deliveries has gone through the roof during lockdown.
Has it? Maybe in the big cities, but not in the provincial towns and cities. There are a lot of schemes being trialled in odd towns but national roll-out hasn't happened yet, regardless of the spin put on it by the delivery companies.
How much food do you actually think some kid is going to be able to carry in his backpack? A couple of bags of groceries? Certainly not a weeks worth of shopping for a family of four.
Just because there is demand doesn't mean it's being fulfilled.
Deliveroo recently did a big wave of redundancies so presumably that means overall volumes are down and riders are having a rough time.
My village isn't eligible for Uber/Deliveroo. Dominoes doesn't even deliver here...
Is that because the mob won't let cyclists in ?
The article mentions that a lot of restaurants were closed, presumably due to Coronavirus. Also, a lot of people have been laid off so can't afford restaurant meals
Actually, a lot of people have been furloughed, the redundancies will come over the next few months. So do you spend it now or squirrel it away for later if you are unfortunate to lose your employment.
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