Glovo riders strike paralyses activity in the company's supermarkets
The workers demand to be hired directly by the company and not by a temporary agency
BarcelonaThe first formal strike in the home delivery sector has managed to get noticed. About 150 Glovo supermarket workers have concentrated this Friday morning at the headquarters of the company and have repeated the action early in the afternoon in the centre of Barcelona to demand their direct hiring and certain improvements in their working conditions. This is the result of the first of nine strike days that will be distributed between this and the next two weekends. The first mobilisation has had a 100% of follow-up, according to CCOO union, and has paralysed the activity in the supermarkets that the company has in Barcelona.
In total there are six centres from which orders are prepared when a Glovo user buys emergency food directly from the company. And they are also the business area that has concentrated most of the hiring that the platform has done as a result of the rider law, which has prohibited this type of company from operating with self-employed workers since mid-August. However, the main complaint of this group of new employees is that, in reality, they have been hired by a temporary employment agency (ETT) and not by Glovo.
This platform, said Javier Pacheco, secretary general of CCOO de Catalunya, uses "a network of subcontracted companies to circumvent the company's labour laws". The union spokesman's main demand to the company's management was that it sit down with the workers to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement.
"We want Glovo to regulate the working conditions of delivery workers, to open the door to develop their functions normally and at the same time to give workers a way to earn a living in a dignified manner", he summed up.
The mobilisation has also brought together some of the delivery drivers who are still self-employed, who are the ones who take orders mainly from restaurants. The so-called Independent Movement of Glovers of Barcelona has also demanded in a statement on Friday that the minimum basic rate charged per run be raised to 2 euros, that they be paid what is due even if orders are cancelled or that the tipping possibilities offered to the user be unblocked, among other things.
