More than a hundred Grab food delivery riders launched the Iloilo Grab Riders Union (IGRU) in Iloilo City, Philippines, on November 24, then staged a unity ride around the city, located on Panay Island. Some 200 drivers joined in the ride, with more riders taking part from the streets, organizers said. The newly formed union’s demand is for just fares, paid sick leave and other social protections, and union recognition.
“The increasing price of gasoline and of commodities and the decrease in base fare delivery fees makes Grab riders work twice their normal hours to get the same wage they earned before the pandemic,”Archie, one of the Grab drivers who helped organize IGRU, said on the local radio show DZRH News. Archie is also a member of the Partido ng Manggagawa (Labor Party).
Photo Credit: Solidarity Center/Andreanna Garcia
Preceding the launch of IGRU, gig drivers from Grab and other platforms such as Food Panda and Maxim had begun to form unions across the Philippines. On August 15, some 300 delivery riders from General Santos City organized under the union, United Delivery Riders of the Philippines (RIDERS). RIDERS is composed of delivery riders from Food Panda, Maxim and Grab. Unity rides have also been conducted in the cities of General Santos and Cebu. Elsewhere in the country, local chapters of RIDERS also have begun to organize.
Their aim is to formally establish the United Delivery Riders of the Philippines (RIDERS) as the national union for the riders. “During the pandemic, when Grab suspended the GrabCar service, Grab food delivery drivers became the lifeline of the company. Is it wrong to ask them to be fair?” asked John Jay, a multi-app driver and organizer from Metro Manila. He attended the IGRU launch to express support for his fellow Grab drivers.
In addition to the decrease in earnings, delivery drivers in the Philippines have little or no job security or basic benefits as they are part of the gig economy. Under Philippine labor laws, delivery riders are classified as “independent contractors,” which does not provide an employee-employer relationship. As gig economy workers, delivery riders are not entitled to social protections such as health insurance and income security, among other basic protections.
“Our interests will be protected only through the passing of laws,” said Mark, a driver and organizer from Pampanga. Like John Jay, he also traveled to Iloilo to share a message of solidarity for his fellow riders.
Philippine Senator Risa Hontiveros proposed the Protektadong Online Workers, Entrepreneurs, Riders at Raketera (POWERR) Act, which would protect workers in the gig economy. A committee currently is working on the bill.
The IGRU launch was supported by the Solidarity Center, the global union IUF, RIDERS, the Center of United and Progressive Workers (SENTRO), Partido ng Manggagawa (Labor Party) and the Brotherhood of Two Wheels (Kagulong).
In Nigeria—where 93 percent of working people toil in the informal economy for low wages, unprotected by labor law and without social services such as pensions and healthcare—app-based workers are fighting for their rights.
With Solidarity Center support, today the Federation of Informal Workers of Nigeria (FIWON), the National Union of Professional APP-Based Transport Workers (NUPA-BW) and the Professional E-Hailing Drivers and Private Owners of Nigeria (PEDPA) launched a joint campaign for formal recognition and adequate representation for all, regardless of classification.
“A worker is a worker,” says Solidarity Center Nigeria Country Program Director Sonny Ogbuehi. “And all working people have the right to join together to secure the decent jobs and fair wages they deserve.”
During the early part of the pandemic, employment in Nigeria plummeted. Although employment has since rebounded, most newly created jobs are precarious and the cost of living has skyrocketed. Many young people, including those who graduated university into the pandemic, are now employed in the gig economy or other informal-sector jobs because no formal-sector work is available.
Following a Supreme Court decision in the United Kingdom classifying Uber drivers as workers rather than independent contractors, NUPA-BW drivers in May last year announced a class action suit against two international app-based ridesharing companies for compensation of unpaid overtime and holiday pay, pensions, social security, as well as union recognition. A month prior, drivers in Lagos embarked on a strike for an immediate increase in fares to compensate for the cost of goods and services that, PEDPA said, had increased by more than 200 percent without a commensurate fare increase.
“We want [ride-share companies] to respect the Nigerian constitution and labor law,” says NUPA-BW President Ayoade Ibrahim.
The joint campaign’s demands include full worker and union rights; provision of social protection programs, including pensions, adequate and affordable healthcare, and disability care; provision by the employer of basic workplace infrastructure such as electricity, water and toilets; improved safety and security measures; and worker input into pricing.
The campaign will:
Support a new NUPA-BW case at the national industrial court for classification of app-based drivers as workers
Produce a weekly call-in radio program to educate the public about the challenges faced by workers employed by app-based companies and other informal-sector workers
Facilitate platform workers efforts to organize and support their efforts to advocate for their rights with government and policy makers, employers and within the public domain.
Some 2 billion people work in the informal sector globally, as domestic workers, taxi drivers and street vendors, many of them women. This number has only increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Informal-economy work now comprises most jobs in many countries and is increasing worldwide. Although informal-economy workers can create up to half of a country’s gross national product, most have no access to health care, sick leave or support when they lose their jobs, and they have little power to advocate for living wages and safe and secure work. The Solidarity Center is part of a broad-based movement in dozens of countries to help workers in the informal economy come together to assert their rights and raise living standards.
Sonny Ogbuehi, Solidarity Center West Africa country program director, said that the digital app companies were only out to make profit with little or no concern for the welfare of their workers. He cited the example of the death of about 10 drivers in Lagos State, who were murdered between January to August 2021.
“Jeff Vogt, at the Washington, D.C.-based Solidarity Center worker rights group, said there was a clear trend toward recognizing improved rights and employment status for those working for gig economy companies dealing with food delivery and taxi hire. “These companies have gone to great lengths to insulate themselves from responsibility and have put an extraordinary burden on workers to claim their basic rights at work. Governments must step in now and enact legislation that protects the rights of all workers providing labor to a digital platform company,'”
Gig economy companies employ multiple strategies that undermine gig worker rights around the world, according to a new issue brief by the International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW) Network, a project of the Solidarity Center.
“The collection of cases analyzed in this report reveals the extraordinary extent to which these companies are embroiled in litigation around the world,” write co-authors Nicola Countouris, labor law professor at University College London (UCL) and research department director for the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), and Jason Moyer-Lee, a fellow at Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
The brief details a string of losses for gig economy companies, including before the highest courts of France, Spain and the United Kingdom, and in lower tribunals from South Korea to Uruguay. Such worker victories have come at great cost and, due to weak enforcement regimes, gig economy companies often do not extend rights even after losing cases, concludes the report.
In countries where companies have seen more success—such as South Africa and the United States—the analysis shows how gig economy employers have deployed multiple tactics to pull off the victories, such as forcing workers into arbitration, making them sign complex and convoluted contracts, or relying on an international corporate structure.
The brief recommends gig workers pursue strategic litigation, complemented by collective action, campaigning and communications strategies targeted at local lawmakers, with a special focus on enforcement. And governments, the brief states, “must proactively and rigorously enforce the law,” while applying penalties stiff enough to dissuade unlawful behavior.
“These companies have gone to great lengths to insulate themselves from responsibility and have put an extraordinary burden on workers to claim their basic rights at work. Governments must step in now and enact legislation that protects the rights of all workers providing labor to a digital platform company,” says Solidarity Center Rule of Law Department Director and ILAW Network co-founder, Jeffrey Vogt.
The report was made possible with funding from the Ford Foundation.
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