French Deliveroo takeaway food riders protest over pay

French riders working for the food delivery company Deliveroo, one of the stars of the new “gig” economy, have staged protests to complain about changes to their pay.

More than a hundred cyclists who deliver food from restaurants in the cities of Paris, Bordeaux, Nantes and Lyon demonstrated on Sunday, with another round of protests planned for Monday, including at the group’s Paris offices.

Britain’s Deliveroo has switched all its riders from August 27 to the same contract in which they are paid per delivery – between 5.0-5.75 euros – rather than an hourly rate. “Overall it means losses of 20-30 percent for us. It’s huge,” Diego Guglieri Don Vito, one of the organisers of a demonstration in the eastern city of Lyon, told AFP.

Deliveroo has said that the change affects about 600 out of 7,500 bikers in France who were on contracts signed before August 2016.

The British company employs all of its riders as independent contractors, rather than as employees, meaning that they do not have rights such as the minimum wage or paid holidays.

This so-called “gig” economy, in which contractors have no job security and are paid only when they work, is seen by some as offering new flexible forms of employment but criticised by others as being exploitative. Delivery riders in France have formed trade unions and collectives to try increase their bargaining power in negotiations over pay and conditions with Deliveroo and its competitors Foodora and UberEats.