These deactivations have infuriated French unions, who believe Uber Eats is deactivating accounts because growth has stalled. “The decision was made without the workers being informed,” said Fabian Tosolini, a deputy for the Independents Unions, which represents self-employed workers in France but is not involved in today’s protest. “They woke up and found they couldn’t connect to the app. Their income just stopped.”
This was also the experience of Bassekou Cissoko, whose Uber Eats account was deactivated on July 28, 2022. The courier signed up to work for Uber Eats in 2019 using someone else’s Italian ID card. Uber spent two weeks verifying its documents, he says, before approving its application. For the next three years, he said he worked 98 hours a week to deliver for the platform. “During Covid, when everyone was locked in to protect themselves from the disease, we gave our lives to Uber and the customers,” he says.
Many of the couriers who have disconnected have Italian ID cards stating they are not allowed to work outside Italy, said Thomas Aonzo, chairman of the Independents Union. But he claims that since 2018, Uber Eats has allowed couriers to use this type of card to create an account. Italian ID cards are common among asylum seekers in Europe, including those who entered the continent through the short stretch of water that separates North Africa and Italy.
The protest in France highlights Uber Eat’s difficult relationship with undocumented workers. Delivery apps, which are often easy to use and available in multiple languages, appeal to people new to a country and looking for work, says Moritz Altenried, a researcher studying digital labor at Humboldt University in Berlin. “Platforms [also] need these workers, otherwise they would struggle to find workers who do work under these conditions.”
This isn’t the first time Uber Eats has been accused of abusing a workforce that has few other options. In 2020, prosecutors placed Uber Italy under special administration and gave a court-appointed commissioner oversight of its business after it emerged that its Uber Eats company in the country was exploiting vulnerable immigrant workers through outside brokers known as gang masters. . The same investigation accused the company of creating an “uncontrolled avalanche of recruitment” during the pandemic.
Uber Eats publicly insists it will not tolerate undocumented workers. In 2019, the company said: The New York Times it had 100 employees in France who tested the right of couriers to work in the country. The French government did not seem reassured. In March 2022, Uber Eats and three other delivery platforms – Frichti, Stuart and Deliveroo, owned by Gorillas – signed an industry charter committing to conduct weekly identity checks on couriers. None of the three responded to questions about how many accounts they had deactivated since the charter was signed.
But unions say closing accounts for undocumented workers doesn’t mean they will stop supplying. “These undocumented migrants, who had bills in their name, usually obtained with Italian residence permits, will find themselves renting accounts on the black market,” said Pimot, CLAP’s president. Such accounts, he adds, can be found on Facebook or Snapchat for $600 a month.
To properly address the problem, unions and protesters in Paris are calling for the gig economy to be included in the French process of “regularization” – involving workers who can prove they have been in France for three years and hold 24 paychecks. , to be considered permanent residents. Currently, freelancers are not eligible and people who work for Uber Eats and other platforms do not receive official payslips.
Regularization would give undocumented couriers the right to work legally in France, while platforms can access the labor they need, according to lawyers. It would also provide security and stability to immigrant couriers, Cissoko said. “[I would] be able to pay my taxes and live with dignity, like all good citizens of this country.”
