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Deaths in Australia highlight plight of delivery riders Issued on: 12/05/2021 - 05:24 Delivery rider Steve Khouw said many workers fell under pressure to rush to avoid bad reviews that can see them kicked off their platform Andrew LEESON AFP 5 min Sydney (AFP) Lockdown-fuelled demand for take-out meals has brought throngs of new delivery riders onto streets around the world, but in Australia the boom has also seen tragedy with a spate of road deaths highlighting the plight of couriers. As many industries ground to a halt last year, millions lost their jobs and others were asked to work from home, 43-year-old Xiaojun Chen was among the legions of couriers who rushed out on the job. ....
For millions of Australians, the gig economy has brought greater convenience to our everyday lives. At any given moment, in metropolitan cities you can order that late night burger without even moving from the comfort of your own couch or secure a lift home with the click of a button. It’s a new era of what we want, whenever we want it with products and services delivered to us directly. However, behind the slick advertising and high-tech veneer of on demand apps and services lies a bleak, hazardous and often dangerous reality: tens of thousands of people working at the fringe of the labour market as delivery riders and personal chauffeurs. When you remove all the tech, the sizzle and pop, it’s little more than modern day iteration of old-school precarious piece work arrangements. ....
Menulog, Australia’s second-largest food ordering and delivery platform, has declared it will break with the standard “gig platform” business model and engage some of its couriers as employees, not independent contractors. “We owe it to our couriers,” Menulog’s managing director Morten Belling told the Senate Select Committee inquiry into job security this week. The inquiry is investigating the scope of insecure or precarious employment in Australia. The Transport Workers’ Union says Menulog’s move is a “watershed moment for the gig economy”. By committing to pay couriers a minimum wage and superannuation, it is going further than its competitors such as UberEats and Deliveroo. ....
The committee has already received 77 submissions from diverse groups including the Transport Workers Union (TWU), Trades Hall Councils, lawyers’ advocacy groups, nursing and hospitality unions, the Australian Medical Association, university casual academics networks, aged and disability care providers and the National Association for the Visual Arts. The diversity of submissions reveals how widespread casual, fixed-term and precarious work is. The big gig corporations Menulog, Uber, UberEats, Ola and Deliveroo have also made submissions. In its submission, the TWU said government needs to regulate the gig economy. TWU national secretary Michael Kaine said on April 12 that workers in the industry face economic hardship at the “whim of an app notification”. ....
Source: Menulog press kit. Menulog’s trial to treat its delivery riders as employees could lead to a shift in the way gig economy companies classify their workers, challenging the idea that they’re entrepreneurs themselves. And, according to one labour law expert, that can’t happen soon enough. Speaking at Labor’s Senate enquiry into job security on Monday, Menulog managing director Morten Belling reportedly said the company will trial an employment model, offering its delivery workers a full suite of employee entitlements. “We hope that in a few years time all the workers that are working on the Menulog platform will be employed,” Belling said. ....