Deliveroo wants to leave Spain, where delivery people will soon have to be salaried
Audio 01:32
A delivery man working for Deliveroo, the home meal delivery company, in Madrid, March 27, 2020 © Gabriel Bouys / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
Home meal delivery platform Deliveroo has announced that it plans to abandon the Spanish market soon.
This announcement comes as a new law on the protection of bicycle delivery men comes into force on August 12.
It forces platforms to pay their delivery people.
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With our correspondent in Madrid,
Diane Cambon
The 3,500 deliverers of the home delivery platform Deliveroo risk being unemployed within three months.
The British company announced its withdrawal from Spain justifying that the Spanish market was not juicy enough.
This decision coincides with the entry into force of new legislation protecting these workers, who
become full-fledged employees
.
Green bag on his back, Manuel, has been a rider for a year and a half for Deliveroo.
The platform's reaction didn't surprise him: “
It didn't surprise me at all, companies think for their own benefit.
This law, yes, it is good, it is supposed to protect us, but in reality I will find myself without a job and I will have to change companies.
"
"
Precarious work, not well paid
"
At the origin of this law, the sling of the collective "Riders X Derechos" (the right of the riders, in Spanish), which has been fighting for several years through court proceedings to denounce the status of "
bogus self-employed
".
Manuel is part of the collective.
“
For me, it's precarious work, not well paid.
I have to pay 280 euros of charges per month as a self-employed person and I earn almost 8 euros per hour.
The only positive point is that thanks to the application I can work when I want, the hours I want and that gives me freedom, a certain flexibility
”.
This flexibility is now also controlled with the new law.
The workload of riders will no longer be subject to the algorithms that determine the number of races they must complete, thus allowing more transparency.
►Also listen: Grand reportage - Delivery Deliveroo: rebellion on two wheels
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