Going after the workers but not the companies doesn’t solve the problem. The government will only play a permanent whack-a-mole as these companies continue to hire more migrants to do their bidding. The gig economy is not the only sector it’s happening in either, the social care sector has a lot of bad faith employers exploiting and scamming foreign migrants too.
RangoCricket on
Given that Labour had their conference sponsored by deliveroo, and the whole P&O debacle, don’t expect anything to happen here, unless it’s to fuck the workers over.
IllustriousLynx8099 on
So these are the same people who were interviewed by the Guardian last month and are now shocked that immigration came knocking? Imagine somebody in the Home Office couldn’t believe their luck when they read that article.
The Government do need to crack down on account sharing on these apps.
Lidl_Security_Guard on
When a fucking *guardian* article has this:
> There are estimated to be between 800,000 and 1.2 million undocumented migrants in the UK who do not have valid visas or other types of immigration documentation. More than half of them have been in the country for at least five years.
You MUST concede there is a massive problem.
Minimum-Geologist-58 on
Sometimes the British State is the master of turning a blind eye and feigning ignorance. “A lot of Deliveroo riders are the victims of modern slavery? I’m shocked I tell you! Shocked!”
Whereas it’s been pretty bloody obvious to the general public for years!
blahchopz on
They need to clamp the loop on “barely can drive” riders as well as taxi drivers
MeanCustardCreme on
My wife is an immigrant, and as a result I have a broad network of family and friends who are also immigrants. I also speak a second language, and have a fair amount of visibility to their community in the UK. I do not have an issue with people coming to the UK and trying to make something of their lives, but my wife and friends all did it legally, and got jobs that were above board, paid their taxes, and have built successful careers.
However there is a serious problem with people coming to the UK on “holidays” and staying for years. Yes, I somewhat sympathise with those who are being “taken advantage of” by businesses, but on the other hand they are here illegally. It’s not just Deliveroo drivers and the likes, but it extends to small time drug dealing, and a bunch of other illegal activities that have an impact on the country as a whole.
There are entire areas, with caravans, houses, flats, with illegal immigrants working under cover. Often they will rent a house with 4 rooms, with multiple people in a singe room. There are beds which are rented, with two people taking shifts on a bed. For example, a nightshift worker coming back home in the morning and swapping with somebody who has a day job.
But to say this is “victims of labour exploitation” is pretty weird mental gymnastics. I’ve seen other cases where it is presented as the UK introducing some kind of modern slavery, when the network is almost entirely driven by the illegal immigrants themselves. Of course, people lap it up because it adds to their idea that Britain are historically racist colonisers looking take advantage of “slaves”.
These people know what they are doing. They are here illegally, not paying taxes, and doing jobs in the undercurrent. They take advantage of weak points in our culture, claiming they are being exploited, when they are doing the exploiting.
I see other comments saying that this is the fault of the companies involved. However it doesn’t need to be one or the other. It can simultaneously be an issue with both companies and illegal immigration.
Ebeneezer_G00de on
“Campos echoed calls by the deputy leader of [Bristol](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/bristol) council, Heather Mack, to give undocumented workers a route to citizenship to protect them from exploitation. Mack said: “Why not create a way to help immigrants work here legally? That way, they would be helping us and at the same time gaining more labour to help the country grow.”
Why not create a way to help our own young people work here for proper secure jobs with guaranteed hours and wages and salaries that are actually not only enough to live on but enough to raise and support a family on?
Why not bring back cookery lessons into schools and ensure people have time to actually cook proper meals from fresh locally sourced ingredients instead of being so exhausted at the end of their 12 hour stint at a warehouse under a zero hours contract that they use an app?
As for UBER and Deliveroo’s role in all this, that’s the globalised techno feudal neo liberal system working exactly as it is supposed to.
I’m not anti immigrant I have a lot of sympathy with those Brazilians however I am anti the wrong kind of immigration which is a cause and effect of a growing precariat class.
That kind of caravan shanty town is a terrible indictment of the dystopia that we’re currently living in.
cheeseley6 on
These food delivery apps need to shut down ASAP and reduce several of the problems facing our society.
You’ve got undocumented migrants, usually riding dangerously and illegally on either push bikes, scooters or modified e-bikes, for a pittance with alot of the cash going off shore, delivering excessive portions of fatty, sugary, salty SHIT to lazy overweight natives who should at least be getting of their arses to get it themselves.
wkavinsky on
That gig economy companies hire people as “contractors” (which legally allows them to employ “sub-contractors” with no checks (from the company) on actual eligibility for employment or residence, is a fucking criminal loophole that needs to be closed.
That the “gig economy” companies aren’t even vaguely profitable if they have to attract staff at true minimum wage prices isn’t anyone else’s problem – we **certainly** shouldn’t be willing to trade social cohesiveness for private companies to make a profit.
It should be fucking telling for everyone that even without needing a computer system, and with wage costs being *much* lower 10-20 years ago, that only a handful of food companies offered delivery back then.
High-Tom-Titty on
I always assumed these companies using the cheap gig labour where just biding their time until they could automate the delivery process. Whether its dones (flying or wheeled) or self-drive cars. They have no interest in the human component, especially regulating it.
smiggy100 on
CEOs of these company’s should not just be fined, take their wealth as proceeds of crime and imprisonment.
Dry_Sandwich_860 on
It’s time for a grown-up conversation about immigration.
It is not hard to stop people from working illegally.
– Every other country in western Europe does it by requiring identity cards/registration. The excuse-makers here bleat that identity cards will ruin our freedom, but we already have to show identification to vote, to register to vote in a particular area, and to do any number of other things.
– It would also cost very little, in the context of the budget, to hire investigators to ferret out employers who exploit foreign workers so they don’t have to pay our own properly.
The point is, EVERYONE KNOWS we have hordes of immigrants working illegally. It’s because of that that pre-Brexit prices were so much lower for food, accommodation, and many other things than on the continent. We all saw what happened after Brexit and the pandemic drove the foreigners away. Prices skyrocketed.
It is shameful and disgusting that everyone is fully aware that we rely on immigrant workers, but they have no rights and have to live in fear and squalor. Keir Starmer should be telling idiots that they have a choice. Pay what things actually cost or accept that we actually rely on foreign workers.
IcantNameThings1 on
Why do people even use these services even more, they were great during covid, but the amount of money you need to buy a meal from just eat and uber eats nowdays is mental.
14 Comments
Going after the workers but not the companies doesn’t solve the problem. The government will only play a permanent whack-a-mole as these companies continue to hire more migrants to do their bidding. The gig economy is not the only sector it’s happening in either, the social care sector has a lot of bad faith employers exploiting and scamming foreign migrants too.
Given that Labour had their conference sponsored by deliveroo, and the whole P&O debacle, don’t expect anything to happen here, unless it’s to fuck the workers over.
So these are the same people who were interviewed by the Guardian last month and are now shocked that immigration came knocking? Imagine somebody in the Home Office couldn’t believe their luck when they read that article.
The Government do need to crack down on account sharing on these apps.
When a fucking *guardian* article has this:
> There are estimated to be between 800,000 and 1.2 million undocumented migrants in the UK who do not have valid visas or other types of immigration documentation. More than half of them have been in the country for at least five years.
You MUST concede there is a massive problem.
Sometimes the British State is the master of turning a blind eye and feigning ignorance. “A lot of Deliveroo riders are the victims of modern slavery? I’m shocked I tell you! Shocked!”
Whereas it’s been pretty bloody obvious to the general public for years!
They need to clamp the loop on “barely can drive” riders as well as taxi drivers
My wife is an immigrant, and as a result I have a broad network of family and friends who are also immigrants. I also speak a second language, and have a fair amount of visibility to their community in the UK. I do not have an issue with people coming to the UK and trying to make something of their lives, but my wife and friends all did it legally, and got jobs that were above board, paid their taxes, and have built successful careers.
However there is a serious problem with people coming to the UK on “holidays” and staying for years. Yes, I somewhat sympathise with those who are being “taken advantage of” by businesses, but on the other hand they are here illegally. It’s not just Deliveroo drivers and the likes, but it extends to small time drug dealing, and a bunch of other illegal activities that have an impact on the country as a whole.
There are entire areas, with caravans, houses, flats, with illegal immigrants working under cover. Often they will rent a house with 4 rooms, with multiple people in a singe room. There are beds which are rented, with two people taking shifts on a bed. For example, a nightshift worker coming back home in the morning and swapping with somebody who has a day job.
But to say this is “victims of labour exploitation” is pretty weird mental gymnastics. I’ve seen other cases where it is presented as the UK introducing some kind of modern slavery, when the network is almost entirely driven by the illegal immigrants themselves. Of course, people lap it up because it adds to their idea that Britain are historically racist colonisers looking take advantage of “slaves”.
These people know what they are doing. They are here illegally, not paying taxes, and doing jobs in the undercurrent. They take advantage of weak points in our culture, claiming they are being exploited, when they are doing the exploiting.
I see other comments saying that this is the fault of the companies involved. However it doesn’t need to be one or the other. It can simultaneously be an issue with both companies and illegal immigration.
“Campos echoed calls by the deputy leader of [Bristol](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/bristol) council, Heather Mack, to give undocumented workers a route to citizenship to protect them from exploitation. Mack said: “Why not create a way to help immigrants work here legally? That way, they would be helping us and at the same time gaining more labour to help the country grow.”
Why not create a way to help our own young people work here for proper secure jobs with guaranteed hours and wages and salaries that are actually not only enough to live on but enough to raise and support a family on?
Why not bring back cookery lessons into schools and ensure people have time to actually cook proper meals from fresh locally sourced ingredients instead of being so exhausted at the end of their 12 hour stint at a warehouse under a zero hours contract that they use an app?
As for UBER and Deliveroo’s role in all this, that’s the globalised techno feudal neo liberal system working exactly as it is supposed to.
I’m not anti immigrant I have a lot of sympathy with those Brazilians however I am anti the wrong kind of immigration which is a cause and effect of a growing precariat class.
That kind of caravan shanty town is a terrible indictment of the dystopia that we’re currently living in.
These food delivery apps need to shut down ASAP and reduce several of the problems facing our society.
You’ve got undocumented migrants, usually riding dangerously and illegally on either push bikes, scooters or modified e-bikes, for a pittance with alot of the cash going off shore, delivering excessive portions of fatty, sugary, salty SHIT to lazy overweight natives who should at least be getting of their arses to get it themselves.
That gig economy companies hire people as “contractors” (which legally allows them to employ “sub-contractors” with no checks (from the company) on actual eligibility for employment or residence, is a fucking criminal loophole that needs to be closed.
That the “gig economy” companies aren’t even vaguely profitable if they have to attract staff at true minimum wage prices isn’t anyone else’s problem – we **certainly** shouldn’t be willing to trade social cohesiveness for private companies to make a profit.
It should be fucking telling for everyone that even without needing a computer system, and with wage costs being *much* lower 10-20 years ago, that only a handful of food companies offered delivery back then.
I always assumed these companies using the cheap gig labour where just biding their time until they could automate the delivery process. Whether its dones (flying or wheeled) or self-drive cars. They have no interest in the human component, especially regulating it.
CEOs of these company’s should not just be fined, take their wealth as proceeds of crime and imprisonment.
It’s time for a grown-up conversation about immigration.
It is not hard to stop people from working illegally.
– Every other country in western Europe does it by requiring identity cards/registration. The excuse-makers here bleat that identity cards will ruin our freedom, but we already have to show identification to vote, to register to vote in a particular area, and to do any number of other things.
– It would also cost very little, in the context of the budget, to hire investigators to ferret out employers who exploit foreign workers so they don’t have to pay our own properly.
The point is, EVERYONE KNOWS we have hordes of immigrants working illegally. It’s because of that that pre-Brexit prices were so much lower for food, accommodation, and many other things than on the continent. We all saw what happened after Brexit and the pandemic drove the foreigners away. Prices skyrocketed.
It is shameful and disgusting that everyone is fully aware that we rely on immigrant workers, but they have no rights and have to live in fear and squalor. Keir Starmer should be telling idiots that they have a choice. Pay what things actually cost or accept that we actually rely on foreign workers.
Why do people even use these services even more, they were great during covid, but the amount of money you need to buy a meal from just eat and uber eats nowdays is mental.