Despite often heroic efforts to deliver food under war conditions, Bolt delivery drivers in Kyiv, Ukraine, have seen a 60 percent cut in wages—and they are demanding the company take immediate action to boost wages and provide vehicle maintenance support.
Prohibited from striking while Ukraine is under martial law, the delivery drivers gathered recently at Bolt’s office in Kyiv to present the company with their demands, which include an increase in minimum payments from 84 cents per order to $1.36 per order, and a boost in per-kilometer pay from 24 cents to 41 cents to compensate for the rise in inflation.
“Our wages have been cut to the minimum,” a driver stated at the gathering. “Now they are trying to force us to work for pennies. It is almost impossible to feed one person on such a wage.”
Another driver said he must “work 14 hours a day, 27 days a month” to survive.
The app-based workers also are urging the company to provide free or low-cost repair and maintenance for their vehicles, most of which are bicycles and motorbikes.
“Bolt Food does not compensate our work expenses in any way,” a driver said. “We bear the risks ourselves. We have to maintain transport at our own expense, we have to pay for fuel, spare parts—and all prices just skyrocketed but our wages were further reduced. These costs reach 70 to 75 percent of income at current prices.”
In addition, workers want Bolt to re-open several app features, such as one that enables drivers to see the client’s address before they accept the job. If the restaurant where they pick up the food is only a few blocks from the client, they only are paid for the short distance from the restaurant to the client’s location, even if they drive miles to get to the restaurant.
Earlier this year, Bolt Food riders in Lviv raised similar demands with the company after Bolt cut wages so drastically workers could not afford gas for their vehicles. Many Ukrainians relocated during the war to Lviv, a relatively safe haven near Poland’s border, and delivery drivers say Bolt took advantage of their plight as they desperately sought jobs to support their families. The delivery drivers won a wage increase July 5 that includes a boost in the amount drivers receive when delivering food during peak times, weekends, late hours and in bad weather, a feature Kyiv delivery drivers also are seeking.
Massive Job Loss and Attacks on Worker Rights
The company’s cutback in wages comes as more than one-third of jobs in Ukraine have been lost since the beginning of the war in February, according to an International Labor Organization report in May. The ILO projected job losses to reach 7 million, or 43.5 percent of the workforce, if the war continues.
Even as the war has decimated jobs and the economy, Ukraine’s parliament passed a law that would significantly erode employees’ rights in areas covering working hours, working conditions, dismissal and compensation after dismissal. The law makes it legal to fire employees who are on sick leave or vacation and allows employers to increase the work week from 40 hours to 60 hours, shorten holidays and cancel additional vacation days. A union’s rights also would be severely curtailed and employers would have the right to unilaterally cancel collective bargaining agreements.
Lawmakers say the legislation would apply only during war. But George Sandul, a lawyer with the Ukrainian worker rights organization Labor Initiatives, says unions and legal experts fear the law will not be revoked.
The legislation did not stem from the war. Similar proposals were pushed months before Russia invaded Ukraine, with the parliamentary committee for social policies and the Ministry of Economy pressing to radically change labor law to favor employers and restrict union rights.
A significant number of migrant workers worldwide are not paid for work performed, and legal remedies to recover them are few. But new policies have proven effective in ensuring migrant workers are treated fairly, a global panel of experts said yesterday.
“Paying workers their wages in full and on time is the basic bargain in employment relationships—when someone works, they do so in exchange for payment from an employer. Yet, for many of the 169 million migrant workers around the world this is not their experience,” said Neha Misra, Solidarity Center global lead on migration and human trafficking. “This is not a simple issue of wage arrears, like a clerical error. This is THEFT.”
Misra co-moderated Innovative Strategies for Improving Migrant Workers Access to Justice for Wage Theft, a panel bringing together migrant worker advocates from Australia, Canada, Colombia and the United States to share promising practices championed by labor and migrant worker rights advocates and adopted by governments and employers. Jeff Vogt, director of the International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW) Network, was co-moderator.
“We need to educate and motivate governments to take action to remedy wage theft, including in supply chains,” said Laurie Berg, co-executive director of the Migrant Justice Institute which, along with Solidarity Center and ILAW, a Solidarity Center project, sponsored the event.
Freedom to Form Unions Key to Ending Wage Theft
Few migrant workers are covered by labor laws, and an overarching solution to the scourge of wage theft is for governments to provide migrant workers access to these fundamental protections—and that includes the ability to freely form unions, an internationally recognized right that most governments refuse to extend to migrant workers.
Speaking on the panel, Bassina Farbenblum, Migrant Justice Institute co-executive director, ourlined additional concrete measures to address wage theft, drawing on examples undertaken in cities and countries around the world. These include shifting the burden of proof to employers in wage claims—such as requiring the employer to demonstrate it paid the worker correctly—to establishing financial repercussions for employers who withhold wages or ignore judgments favorable to workers. Migrant workers often fear deportation or other forms of employer retaliation if they file wage claims, said Farbenblum. Solutions include allowing migrant workers to change employers without losing their visa, and allowing them to file claims after they leave their job — by permitting temporary stay in the country to pursue wage claims or enabling them to file claims from their origin country.
Berg and Farbenblum detail these and more options in Migrant Workers’ Access to Justice for Wage Theft: A Global Study of Promising Initiatives, a 2021 study undertaken in partnership with Solidarity Center and ILAW. The report supports a new initiative coordinated in part by the Solidarity Center, the Migrant Worker Access to Justice for Wage Theft campaign, a global coalition working to provide remedy and accountability for wage theft.
The project launches a new phase in September, with the formation of a community of practice that will develop policy guides on reform targets to enable advocates to push for law and policy reform, said Berg. The guide will set out a variety of models and examples where reform has been implemented.
Canada, Colombia Examples to End Wage Theft
Panelists Amanda Aziz, a lawyer at the Migrant Workers Center in Canada, and Angélica Palacios Martínez at the Solidarity Center in Colombia, detailed specific initiatives in their countries to end wage theft.
In Canada, where migrant workers’ work visas are tied to specific employers in temporary migration schemes, rights advocates campaigned to establish an open work permit program in 2019 that applies to vulnerable workers with valid permits. The ability to move freely to another job allows them to escape abusive work situations, said Aziz. Similar systems in which migrant worker visas are valid only for one employer, such as the kafala sponsorship system in Arabian Gulf countries that ties migrant workers to their employers and guestworker programs in the United States that do the same, effectively deny migrant workers fundamental rights and fuels abuse like wage theft.
Martínez described how the recent influx of Venezuelan migrant workers to Colombia makes it easy for employers to exploit a vulnerable workforce. Many seek jobs through platform delivery companies such as Rappi, which effectively tells workers if they do not like conditions, they can leave because other workers will take their jobs, she said. While Colombian workers in the formal sector work up to 48 hours a week, migrant workers must work far more because they are paid so little, she said.
The workers formed a union, UNIDAPP, and took their demands for decent work to the labor minister. They also won a court decision that forced Rappi to pay wages they owed workers.
“We’re looking for equality of the treatment of all workers in the country,” Martínez said.
Also speaking on the panel, Ruth Silver-Taube at the Santa Clara University School of Law described how advocacy efforts of a wage theft coalition won a series of victories that included barring governments in Santa Clara County, San Jose, and other nearby cities from contracting with employers who have outstanding wage theft judgments.
Demanding the ratification of International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 189, Decent Work for Domestic Workers, leaders and members of the National Domestic Women Workers Union (NDWWU) on June 16, 2022, rallied in front of the National Press Club in Bangladesh to mark International Domestic Workers Day.
They also demanded the ratification of International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention on violence and harassment in the world of work (ILO C190). A Bangladesh Institute of Labor Studies (BILS) report says 12 domestic workers were raped in 2020.
Although Bangladesh presided over the 100th session of the International Labor Conference and voted for ILO C189, the country’s domestic workers still are not protected by the global treaty because the government has yet to ratify it.
When Sitara Begum, 60, approached law enforcement after being harassed at her job as a domestic worker they did not assist her, and she was forced to flee from her employer. “In 22 years of working as a house help, I had to endure many such incidents. When does our agony stop?” she asks.
Domestic worker Rehana Akter Mita, 37, her family’s only breadwinner, earns $96.59 per month, which does not cover living expenses. Mita often takes loans from relatives to support her son’s education and husband’s medical costs.
The 2006 Bangladesh Labor Act does not recognize domestic worker rights. Domestic workers and their unions are urging the government to ratify ILO C189, a global treaty ensuring domestic workers their rights on the job.
The Global Organizing Symposium, a daylong side event of the AFL-CIO Convention, brought together workers and activists from around the world to share experiences focused on building collective power for workers post-pandemic and highlighted their role in fighting authoritarianism and bolstering democracy. Sessions focused on platform worker rights, clean-energy models that both address climate change and work for workers and building an inclusive movement for gender and racial equality.
In the first session, panelists shared how gig workers in the platform economy are organizing globally to create decent work in a sector notorious for low-balling pay and denying rights and benefits.
As the pandemic took hold two years ago, app-based delivery workers in Mexico—like their counterparts around the world—encountered increasingly dangerous working conditions. When one worker was killed on the job and the company did nothing, they knew the only way to protect themselves and their livelihoods was to join in common cause.
The workers formed a colectivo they called Ni Un Repartidor Menos (Not One Delivery Worker Less) to address egregious and life-threatening job hazards, among them sexual harassment, violence, injuries fatal and less so, as well as unfair laws that have levied onerous taxes on wages and for the use of infrastructure, like sidewalks.
Saúl Gómez, founder of Ni Un Repartidor Menos, told a gathering of almost 300 union activists convened ahead of the AFL-CIO Convention for the Global Organizing Symposium last weekend that the app company cares little about the workers, and customers can act with impunity toward delivery people. Women workers, in particular, face inappropriate behavior and additional safety risks. For example, Gómez said it was not unusual for naked customers to receive deliveries. Even worse: One woman worker delivering to a residence in one of Mexico City’s toniest neighborhoods, Polanco, was held captive by the customer for nearly a week.
The customer suffered no consequences. The worker was fired when the company removed her from the app.
Defending Democracy and Hard-Won Rights
ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow discusses the erosion of democracy with Kassahun Follo Amenu from Ethiopia and Olesia Briazgunova from Ukraine. Credit: Jay Mallin
Speakers pointed to the erosion of democracy in their country and ways the labor movement is working to turn the tide. Nowhere is the conflict between authoritarianism and freedom more in the spotlight than Ukraine.
“We are paying a big price for independence,” said Olesia Briazgunova, international director of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine. Among the thousands of Ukrainians defending their country are union members, while other unionists are “dodging bullets and shelling to deliver humanitarian aid.
“At the same time, we are following situations in other countries like Myanmar, Belarus and Hong Kong, and every threat that spreads evil in the world.”
Tunisia, meanwhile, is going through an economic, financial, social and institutional crisis, and “conditions are deteriorating with the inability of the elite to develop democratic institutions,” said Hedia Arfaoui, deputy secretary general of the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT). Youth are especially disillusioned, she added, with little hope for employment or a reduction in the poverty rate.
Many Tunisians are concerned that the democracy gains made following the 2011 revolution—especially those made by women, including full gender equality under a new constitution—will be dismantled. Tunisian President Kais Saied, who is currently ruling by decree, has said he will replace the 2014 constitution. Hundreds of thousands of UGTT members took part in a general strike June 16.
“Women’s rights are an integral part of the human rights system. And Tunisian women and trade unionists are aware of the danger of rollbacks of all they have won,” she said.
In Ethiopia, where politics are based on ethnic groups and a divisive war continues, the Confederation of Ethiopian Trade Unions (CETU) promotes inclusion, peace and dialogue, said CETU President Kassahun Follo. As the largest multi-ethnic, civil society organization in the country, the union focuses on common goals, “uniting on workplace issues and labor rights,” he said. Since October 2021, CETU has organized 30,000 workers.
“There are no human rights, no labor rights without democracy. And today, fewer than 20 percent of people live in truly free countries,” highlighted Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation. “We can only ensure peace and democracy through social justice.”
Participants also expressed concern over the situation in Hong Kong and pledged support to working people and unions in Hong Kong who are under severe pressure.
Workers, Unions and Climate Change
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler engaged with participants at the AFL-CIO global side event. Credit: Jay Mallin
Lebogang Mulaisi, labor market policy coordinator of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), said that very early on, COSATU recognized that “climate issues are workers’ issues,” and COSATU’s work to bring about a just transition is based on three principles: distributed justice, procedural justice and restorative justice. The first ensures the benefits and burdens of what is a very disruptive process be distributed. Procedural justice means everyone affected is involved in determining the rules that guide the transition. And with restorative justice, vulnerable populations most affected by unemployment and inequality—among them women and youth—are both participants and beneficiaries.
“It will take strong unions to bring about a just transition,” she said.
In Brazil, efforts to move toward the use of renewable energy are a challenge not least because democracy there is under threat, said Quintino Severo, deputy international affairs secretary of CUT Brazil. “A great challenge is to make sure all the rights we have won are respected,” he said. “Clean energy isn’t clean if it’s tainted by the blood of workers.”
Highlights of the event included keynote speeches by Liz Shuler, AFL-CIO president, and Uzra Zeya, U.S. under secretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights.
Cathy Feingold, AFL-CIO international director, moderated the symposium. Other speakers discussing organizing and democracy in the U.S. and European contexts were: Stuart Applebaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU); Roxanne Brown, international vice president, United Steelworkers; Stephen Cotton, general secretary, International Transport Workers Federation; Atle Høie, general secretary, IndustriALL; Zingiswa Losi, president, COSATU; Biju Mathew, president, International Alliance of App-Based Transport Workers, Terrence Melvin, secretary-treasurer, New York State AFL-CIO; and Ashwini Sukthankar, director of global campaigns, Unite HERE.
Hundreds of thousands of public employees across Tunisia waged a one-day strike today after talks with the government failed to address the rising cost of living and sinking wages, even as it increases taxes and cuts social programs.
“The strike on June 16, 2022, is an opportunity for workers to affirm their unity, hold on to their rights, and defy the usurpation and threats, including unconstitutional and illegal burdens,” the Tunisia General Labor Union (UGTT) says in a statement.
At least 96 percent of public employees from 159 state institutions and public companies took part in the strike, according to the UGTT, which says the strike enabled workers “to express their anger at the deterioration of their working and economic conditions, the low wages and the threat to their livelihoods.” The UGTT, which represents nearly 1 million workers, says the government is “undermining the principle of negotiation and backtracking on previously agreed deals.”
Flights were cancelled as members of the Transport General union observed the strike. In Tunis, the capital, striking workers rallied at the UGTT building where they staged a sit-down strike, waving signs, “Do not neglect public institutions!” and “I love the country!” Members of organizations such as the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights, Democratic Women, and the Economic Forum turned out to support striking workers.
Government Bailout at Workers’ Expense
Tunisian workers rallied at the UGTT building during the one-day general strike. Credit: Montasar Akremi / UGTT
The government is seeking a $4 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in exchange for cuts in food and energy subsidies, wage freezes and privatization of state-owned enterprises.
The UGTT has rejected proposed spending cuts and, with year-over-year inflation at 7.8 percent in May, is seeking wage increases for public-sector workers. UGTT also is demanding that state-owned companies, including electricity and fuel, not be privatized and wants the government to adhere to a December 2021 agreement in which it will negotiate with unions on policies affecting workers. UGTT also is calling for the immediate, case-by-case review and reform of public institutions.
“The current government is determined to make [workers] bear the consequences of its choices,” UGTT says, citing the current and previous governments’ failure to address its financial crisis.
Global union organizations are backing the UGTT in its efforts to end the impasse with the government, with the AFL-CIO, the European Trade Union Confederation, IndustriALL and others sending letters of support.
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The app-based workers also are urging the company to provide free or low-cost repair and maintenance for their vehicles, most of which are bicycles and motorbikes.
Few migrant workers are covered by labor laws, and an overarching solution to the scourge of wage theft is for governments to provide migrant workers access to these fundamental protections—and that includes the ability to freely form unions, an internationally recognized right that most governments refuse to extend to migrant workers.
