Takeaway delivery strikes will be held every Friday and on holidays if demands are not met, an organiser has said ahead of the Valentine’s Day stoppage.

A group calling itself Delivery Jobs UK says up to 4,000 delivery riders could strike between 5pm and 10pm on Wednesday night as there are four full WhatsApp groups, each with more than 1,000 users, discussing dissatisfaction with pay for food delivery jobs.

Apps riders use are Just Eat, Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Stuart. They are mainly for delivering takeaways but can be used to buy groceries.

Deliveroo has contacted restaurants in areas it expects to be impacted and suggested they stop accepting orders if they begin to stack up, and switch their delivery terminal to offline mode “to avoid a negative customer experience”.

The email, seen by Sky News, said restaurants will not be charged commission for cancelling deliveries and that Deliveroo will proactively cancel orders that are more than 45 minutes late en route to customers.

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The biggest impact of the action will be in central and north London, but there are 95 group leaders, each with an area they are organising, spokesperson Ulisses Cioffi told Sky News.

Such action will continue on Fridays and holidays such as Father’s Day, Easter, and Mother’s Day if demands are unmet, he said.

International campaigning

Organisers are based across the country, including London, Bristol, Brighton and Liverpool.

The group is sharing tactics with similar delivery worker movements both nationally and internationally, such as in Ireland and the US, where gig economy worker strikes are also due to take place.

“We’re now sharing articles, information and tactics. So whatever is successful, that we were going to try here, whatever is successful here we will try that until [delivery companies] sit down with us,” Mr Cioffi said.

Dissatisfaction with pay is the unifying complaint from the groups who, Mr Cioffi said, often work in dangerous environments, dealing with drunk people, bike thefts and racism.

Economic factors

The Delivery Jobs UK group is calling for a minimum fee of £5 per delivery, compensation for the time it takes a courier to get to the pick-up point, and increased pay when delivering more than one order from a particular food outlet.

Rather than rising with the cost of living, Mr Cioffi said fees had come down.

In a typical six-day week, working 10 to 12-hour days, a delivery person can expect to gross £700 to £850, he said, down from roughly £900 to £1,000 a week.

That is before tax and the various overheads for drivers – such as fuel and vehicle costs – are taken into account.

People are working longer hours and an extra day as a result, he added.

But, he said, the job still attracts workers – including a significant number of single mothers – due to a combination of flexibility and job losses elsewhere.

“I think this is the perfect part-time job, but unfortunately, the way the economy is going it becomes people’s main job.”

The gig economy story continues

The complaints are not new. Delivery app courier and gig economy struggles have been in the headlines for years and even reached the Supreme Court.

In response to increased coverage of gig economy pay and conditions in the pandemic years, and Uber drivers’ ultimately successful battle through the UK courts, Just Eat became the first food delivery aggregator in the UK to employ delivery people.

Before scrapping the plan in March last year and letting employed riders go, the Just Eat Takeaway.com chief executive Jitse Groen said the gig economy “has led to precarious working conditions across Europe, the worst seen in a hundred years”.

“The gig economy comes at the expense of society and workers themselves,” he wrote in a February 2021 edition of the Financial Times.

Other companies have responded in different ways.

Deliveroo offers free insurance, sickness cover, financial support for new parents and training opportunities, though Mr Cioffi said it was difficult to claim and that the income protection was not based on average weekly earnings.

Unions

And while the UK’s highest court in November ruled Deliveroo riders were not employees and so not entitled to collective bargaining rights, a union has been recognised by the company

GMB in 2022 entered a trade union agreement with the company.

But when the union emailed all Deliveroo riders last week to say “we represent all Deliveroo riders”, Mr Cioffi said it was the first he had heard from them.

A day before receiving the email, Delivery Jobs UK had written an open letter and described themselves as “the united voice of the UK’s delivery workforce”.

The Valentine’s Day strike is separate to GMB organising activity, and Delivery Jobs UK group said GMB did not represent them, and that its core values were in contrast with GMB.

Instead, the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) has lent its support and acted as observers, rather than direct organisers, according to Mr Cioffi.

“These strikes, which began on 2 February, are going to succeed in a way others haven’t, through use of WhatsApp, Instagram reels and generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, ChatGPT,” Mr Cioffi said.

“ChatGPT can translate to 50 Different languages so we can communicate well with everyone in a matter of five minutes.”

The gig economy may be a boon to Delivery Jobs UK.

As self-employed people without employee contracts, riders can remove their labour whenever they see fit. Unlike in other industries, which come under the remit of strike laws, any dissatisfied rider can walk out without procedure or approval.

It’s understood most deliveries were made on time during the group’s previous walkout on 2 February.

If that changes, however, and the impact on delivery businesses grows, there’s not a lot they can do to stop riders walking out.

A Deliveroo spokesperson said: “Deliveroo aims to provide riders with the flexible work riders tell us they value, attractive earning opportunities and protections.

“Thousands of people apply to work with Deliveroo each month, rider retention rates are high and the overwhelming majority of riders tell us that they are satisfied working with us.

“We value dialogue with riders”.

An Uber Eats spokesperson said: “We offer a flexible way for couriers to earn by using the app when and where they choose.

“We know that the vast majority of couriers are satisfied with their experience on the app, and we regularly engage with couriers to look at how we can improve their experience.”

A Stuart spokesperson said: “Stuart remains committed to providing competitive earnings opportunities for courier partners and delivering a courier-centric platform.

“We will be working with clients to minimise disruption during the impacted period.”

Just Eat did not respond to a request for comment.

GMB did not respond to requests for comment.