Dozens of Groninger Riders Came Together - and Took Action Immediately
Instagram Groningen Twitter Groningen mail Groningen branch
Groningen Radical Riders are here! 20 riders from Thuisbezorgd, Flink, Gorillas, Dominos, Deliveroo and Uber Eats gathered in a social centre and got to work straight away. Also present at the meeting were friends organized by the FNV, outside of riding the biggest Dutch labour union; we joined forces with them and want to work towards long-term solidarity and cooperation. We opened our meeting by celebrating our first success: we made Flink pay one of our colleagues after he was ignored by his employer for many weeks. As his situation was dire, we took immediate action and suddenly Flink was very quick to respond and pay him. After this great introduction, we started to make plans, eager for change and confident in our new organization. Radical Riders Groningen is truly built from the bottom up with local riders leading the change. We’ve got a lovely & lively group chat going with new people joining everyday.
Sickness & Sick pay – Issues in Groningen
The first issue we discussed as relevant for riders in Groningen is sick pay and policies around sickness. Those with zero-hour contracts are asked to give away scheduled shifts when sick in situations where they would be entitled to continued pay. No information is made available about the protocol for claiming sickness hours, and some companies do not offer sickness pay at all, which is illegal. Another issue workers at Thuisbezorgd faced was that there is only one telephone line for reporting sickness for the whole of Groningen, so with 8-15 people calling in the morning it can be tough to get through. This is problematic as the official guideline is that calls after 10:30 are treated as no-shows and can lead to getting fired if repeated. When calling, sick workers are asked for medical information about the illness and their claim to sickness is dismissed if it’s not deemed serious enough. Many of these practices are not in line with Dutch legislation.
Thus we decided that we needed a primer on sickness and sick pay which we can share with our colleagues. We had it in under a week: Sickness, sick pay, rights and duties for riders in The Netherlands – Right to be sick . In our union quite a bit of knowledge has built up and is available for riders.
Flink failing to pay (full) wages, not only in Groningen
A second structural issue, which now has been fixed after activism by the Radical Riders, the FNV and other independent actors, was the structural wage theft by Flink. Flink was failing to pay hundreds of Euros per month to many workers, and many were not paid at all. After our colleague had been ignored for weeks and was paid within 3 days after we got involved, we are confident to say that unpaid wages is something we can fix.
Dangerous Weather Conditions, Unsafe Bikes and Lacking Material
A third issue that people raised is the dangerous weather conditions of the winter. Riders were sent out into code orange storms ( the one we all remember, on the 18th February), onto black ice, and frost. People crashed and the ones who didn’t felt unsafe. We feel like this is a sign of deep disrespect of our employer’s duty of care towards us. Official guidelines and trainings will tell us beforehand to deal with feelings of extreme cold and numbness by ‘warming up at the hub/warehouse’ as this is medically advised for workers in extreme weathers; but when we are soaked and shivering due to the low-quality raingear that we have to wear by company rules we are told to ‘bike faster to warm up’ or that there are too many orders to give us any kind of break.
Related is the issue of work materials and the compensation for these. The law is quite clear that the employer is responsible for ensuring safe and functioning equipment, in this case bikes, clothing, phones and power banks. Depending on the company and the position within the company, riders can be required to provide things such as their own bike, a phone and a power bank. Bikes may be compensated per kilometer, but once they break during work time which thereby also falls within the employer’s responsibility, our shifts end and the repair is ours to pay. Phone damages are not compensated at all, even if this damage stems from unfit phone holders provided by our companies. At the best, certain companies pay a small fee for data use. Power banks with a certain strength are also required equipment which every employee has to pay for themselves. Certain companies even inspect our phones to check our battery levels at the beginning of our shift. All we are asking for is companies to own up to their legal responsibilities and to not make their employees pay the equipment costs they should pay. This is a direct wealth transfer from underpaid riders to shareholders of these companies. Right now, we’re penalized for their failure, and when our phones break, we often need to pay them ourselves. We need to fix this, our how-to on recovering costs for broken phones at Gorillas is a start that already took a lot of work and effort and is not standardized yet.
How should Riders organize in Groningen?
There are two relevant modes of organizing.
Radical Riders is a small union compared to the a traditional union FNV, even though we’re the biggest in this sector of the economy. We are also an entirely volunteer-run union based on solidarity and mutual aid. But we are getting things done already by taking direct action focused around small but highly visible issues. Our membership is free, and anyone can help out any way they like. Joining up is helpful for communication, allocating tasks, planning meetings and to start growing throughout the Netherlands.
There is no requirement to be a Rider or to be employed at a delivery company, all you need is solidarity. Modern work is precarious, temporary and fragmented, as barely anyone does the same job throughout their entire lives anymore. Modern union movement needs to organize around this situation. A flexible union led by workers can quickly spot the issues in rapidly developing sectors and help each other across companies, while growing in numbers by achieving demonstrable victories. This way individuals don’t have to stand alone and feel isolated when addressing problems in their workplace. This is vital especially in the delivery sector, where a high turnover and little cooperative work leads to high barriers to organising.
An alternative way of being organized is to join a traditional union such as the FNV. It’s not free but relatively cheap, especially for students. Due to their funds and a large amount of paid professionals, they have more means at their disposal. When it comes to striking, an important means of taking action, the FNV can help with a strike fund that members get paid from while on strike. At the moment, the FNV is only starting to organize in the delivery sector, and the outcome of their efforts are hopefully seen in the next months.
During our meeting it became clear that our ways of organizing are complementary. We encouraged our members to join the FNV and asked the FNV members to join us. We’re looking forward to working together in solidarity!