Those who are indifferent to this issue because it “concerns foreigners” must think again because racism sometimes blinds and if anything backfires

AKEL C.C. Spokesperson Giorgos Koukoumas on ‘Wolt’ strike:

• The most powerful weapon working people have at their disposal is their organised struggle
• Those who are indifferent to this issue because it “concerns foreigners” must think again because racism sometimes blinds and if anything backfires

15 December 2022

“The delivery driver’s strike at the ‘Wolt’ food delivery company reveals – to those who pretended they never saw it – the appalling working conditions for delivery drivers in our country too. That is to say, young workers, who for humiliating wages, in the heat, cold and rain, are roaming our streets all day and night to deliver food and groceries to our homes,” AKEL Spokesperson and AKEL MP Giorgos Koukoumas pointed out in a post on social media.

More specifically:

“Those who are indifferent to the issue, because it “concerns foreigners”, must think again because racism sometimes blinds you and, if anything, comes back on you as a boomerang. Work through digital platforms is expanding at a frantic pace all over the world and is no longer just about food delivery workers (where Cypriots work as well), but also concerns many other professions, from journalists to plumbers and all kinds of tradesmen.

What starts with the reference to “foreign deliverymen” who are the weakest link in the chain, will from now on erode the whole spectrum of labour relations, through the practice of subjecting more and more workers to the purchase of services system with service/’collaborator status.

“I’m not your employer”, declare digital platform companies, “we just collaborate and you take on jobs with piece work through the application/app”.

In this way, employers are relieved of the duty to pay social insurance and contributions to the National Health Scheme GESY (i.e. what the Cypriot state itself does for teachers employed in all-day schools and evening programs).

At the same time, it transfers to workers other costs that would normally be the responsibility of the employer, for example, the delivery drivers pay the cost of the means of transport (fuel, maintenance, technical checks), personal protective equipment, liability for accidents, etc.

In addition, the way of paying workers (payment per delivery) intensifies in an exhaustive way the pace of the delivery service itself, pushing for as many and as fast deliveries as possible, long distances, and hence exposing workers to greater dangers in the urban traffic network.

And, as we have learnt, companies are asking for a “commission” from workers on top of all that. The flexibility that new technologies would bring to the economy is becoming a flexible acute exploitation of workers.

Since the beginning of 2022, AKEL, through the tabling of a parliamentary question, has called on the Ministry of Labour to provide data on what is actually happening in the sector of distributors and workers employed on digital platforms.

At the same time, AKEL has also raised the issue in Parliament with an ex-officio debate in the Parliamentary Labour Affairs Committee, where we demanded that digital platform workers through the approval of legislation must by law be considered as employees and not as self-employed “collaborators”! (with the burden of proof to the contrary, on the employer). At the same time, AKEL also underlined that collective agreements are the protective shield for all working people. However, the government has since then made it quite clear that it will NOT table such a bill, but that it will wait when the discussions in the European Union are concluded…

On the government’s side (or above it, if you like), the Cyprus Employers & Industrialists Federation (OEB) and the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry KEBE) who both strongly opposed in that meeting AKEL’s position on such a regulation and more specifically with regards the Spanish model.

As we are not waiting for the outgoing government to agree with our position, let us bear in mind that the most powerful weapon at their disposal is when they realise that – whether they are delivery workers or teachers, whether they are employed in the public or private sector, whether they are Cypriots or foreigners, whether they work on a construction site or in an office of a multinational company, whether they go to work in their overalls or in a suit – their most powerful weapon is their organised struggle and power”.