Don’t takeaway our chance to earn a fair wage
‘This is modern day slavery. We earn as little as £60 for working a 16-hour day’
UBER delivery drivers have gone on strike – claiming they are earning as little as £4 an hour.
Dozens of workers delivering food for Uber Eats in Edinburgh launched the wildcat action on Sunday.
They claim to have forced the controversial Californian company to shut down their delivery service in the city, which launched last June.
Uber said the move hadn’t caused major disruption and claimed the couriers averaged £9.75-an-hour last week.
Uber Eats – a division of the taxi app firm – deliver food from more than 70 restaurants in the capital.
Customers are charged £3.50 and Uber also take a percentage of the total bill.
But the drivers claim Uber have dropped their pay – leaving some working 16-hour days for just £60 or £70.
When the service launched last summer, they say the same workload saw them earn more than £100 a day.
About 50 drivers operating as independent contractors use personal cars and pay for their own petrol to ferry orders around the capital.
The drivers say the latest change to their conditions has seen payments for a food delivery plummet to about £3, with at most two drops feasible every hour. With out-of-pocket expenses of about £2 an hour, they’re left with just £4 an hour to live on. The UK minimum wage is £7.50 an hour for over-25s. The strikers are demanding a minimum £5 per delivery. Bogdan Ludovec, 38, of Edinburgh, said: “This is modern-day slavery. I’m working 14 to 16 hours daily. “The drivers talked to each other and arranged to stop taking orders from 5pm on Sunday. “At McDonald’s in London Road, 20 orders were waiting within half an hour and Uber shut down the delivery system.” The drivers use a phone app to pick up jobs, collecting food orders and delivering to homes up to three miles away.
They have no set shifts, work when they choose and receive no holiday or sick pay.
Bogdan said: “This week, Uber dropped the earnings to about £6 an hour if you do two drops. With petrol and car costs, you’re lucky to keep £4 an hour.
“But you might actually get only 25 deliveries in 16 hours. That would be £4 an hour before costs.
“When we started last June, it was OK. You were guaranteed £9 an hour as long as you made at least one delivery.
In September, Uber changed it to a ‘boost’ system where you received a multiple of the delivery fee. They said we’d earn more.
“This week, the boost has been cut right down and in some areas there’s no boost paid. That gives you about £3 per delivery on average.
“I now earn £60 to £70 per day for 16 hours and work about 100 hours each week. Most drivers are the same.”
An Uber Eats spokesman said: “Last week on average, couriers in Edinburgh were online for 14 hours in total and made around £9.75 per hour after Uber’s service fee.
“Our door is always open for them to come and talk about any issue they are having.”
The drivers were back at work last night but they plan to strike again this weekend if their demands are not met.