Imagine a perfect evening all planned and set to order from a food delivery service and you fail to do so. That is the case with some neo-liberal Latin American consumers as a judge, who in crisis stricken Argentina, has suspended delivery apps for not stating that companies must pay for the safety gears that these delivery app workers can use during their work. With the growth of online delivery apps and baggage of huge profits, the demand of jobs in this sector is only accelerating and not just in Latin American countries but also in other Third World countries like India. Starting from the lower middle class to every other down below, these platforms can provide easy jobs to earn their bread and butter by working from Monday-Monday. Workers of these sectors make around $500 in a month in Argentina, but along with jobs, these app based companies also bring life risk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
These\nworkers work 12-14 hours a day to pay for their bills, pay for the fuel spent\nduring their work time and also for the gear that the company provides. Besides\nthis, these jobs also come with a registration cost and they cannot provide any\nexperience certificates as these workers are not recognised as employees by the\ncompany. Workers in this sector are often seen speeding on the road to deliver\nthe food within specified time, are not paid regularly for waiting at the\nrestaurant and are heavily fined by the police and repeatedly harassed for\nparking in front of restaurants. While some companies do provide a few parking\nspaces around every region, most restaurants do not have one and the workers\nhave to pay hefty fines to keep working. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\npicture is not any different in this country either. With companies breaking\nboundaries and going trans-national, the crisis that comes along in each sector\nalso travels along borders. The deregulations in favour of companies are the\nsame in every capitalist economy, always favouring the corporate and never the\nworker. Workers\u2019 Unions in Argentina had been calling out the companies on\ntheir ignorance towards workers which ultimately resulted in the judge suspending\nthe delivery apps and demanding that the companies equip workers with safety\ngear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nlip smacking food with 50-60% of discount, free delivery on first orders, all\ncomes with a cost, we, the neo-liberal consumer section do not pay and we are\nglad! Just as glad as we are about the Zomato CEO giving out a statement in\nfavour of secularism and stating that food is itself a religion. Liberals and\nsocial democrats clapping from the back bench is an easy sight to spot whenever\na celebrity (facebook or not) stands up for secularism in the face of growing\nfascistic tendencies of the ruling party and its ways of governance. That\u2019s\nthat and that\u2019s what can be expected from this bunch but the leftists in favour\nof and participating in radical working class struggle has jumped on hyped up\nhollow statements this time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\nis a very common sight to see people praising delivery app workers and patting\ntheir back on social media, expressing gratitude but you\u2019ll rarely see somebody\nspeaking up for the labour rights of this sector. This is a neo-liberal\nunorganised sector that is devoid of the \u201cemployee\u201d tag, they are referred to\nas partners, collaborators and multiple synonyms all across the globe. We know\nthem in India, as partners of several food delivery app companies like Zomato,\nSwiggy, Uber Eats etc. In Argentina, they are recognised by the Delivery App\ncompanies as \u201ccollaborators\u201d. They do not enjoy the labour laws that govern\nlabour intense sectors in this country or outside. Worldwide, due the\nincreasing unemployment crisis, more and more people are gushing in through the\nunemployment tunnel to this unorganised delivery app based sector. The drums of\ninvestments have been banged over and over again in the name of unemployment,\nall ultimately being a failure and ending with the vulnerable class leaning\ntowards these sectors with deregulated laws that don\u2019t cover their safety on\nroad as an employee and even when they do, the entire charade of proving that\nthe delivery partner\/collaborator has met with an accident on road for\nreceiving a compensation of some sort is absolutely inhumane and insane. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recently\nin Argentina, one such delivery collaborator\/partner met with an accident and\nthe person was subjected to provide pictures of him carrying the package at the\ntime of accident to receive compensation. This is equally true of the workers\nof this sector in India. With the increasing unemployment crisis here which has\nrecently been stated to be the worst in the last few decades, this sector has a\nsurge of workers looking for jobs to earn a living which these companies are\nusing to threaten them from joining forces, standing united against the exploitation\nthat the job brings along. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So\nbefore jumping on the couch and clapping for hollow statements that don\u2019t pay\nthe workers enough to eat the food that these workers bring to your doorsteps,\nthink who you are clapping for? Always for the corporate, never for the\nworkers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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