For years, the company did not test the bikes of its couriers for roadworthiness. The employees should mostly pay for repairs themselves.
David steps on the pedals of his bike. It should go quickly, says the 21-year-old. The bicycle courier who works for the delivery company Lieferando now knows every corner of the Frankfurt metropolitan area. “I have to earn money to finance my studies,” says the young man who came to the Main from Croatia.
According to the works council, there is currently chaos among the workforce. Lieferando has recently been monitoring the road safety of the bicycles. For years this was completely irrelevant to the company. Because the employees are supposed to pay for repairs themselves, the works council wants to take legal action.
“While the business is exploding due to Corona, Lieferando is not adhering to the simplest work guidelines,” says works council Chayan Díaz Fuentes. That was the result of a plant inspection in December, during which the Darmstadt Regional Council visited the Lieferando headquarters in Frankfurt, also known as the “Hub”. No bike was checked for safety deficiencies, and there was no mandatory risk assessment for companies. The toilets were inoperative and the kitchen was infested with cockroaches.
The RP then demanded security requirements. Lieferando should take all bicycles out of service and only release them again after they have been checked for defects. To prevent this shutdown, the company organized an inspection of the wheels in early February. A large part, both owned by the company and private, turned out to be unsafe for traffic. But there is no substitute for the unsafe bicycles: “Some who do not have their own bicycle have not been working for two weeks,” reports Díaz Fuentes. Actually, only those with bicycles classified as safe are allowed to continue. However, some couriers still run “behind the back of the authorities” with their unsafe or unchecked private bicycles, says Deputy Works Council Chairman António Fernandes Coelho. On the grounds that they are responsible for their bikes themselves.
A new driver came into the inspection on his first day at work, says Díaz Fuentes. Result: He was sent away again to have his bike repaired for a lot of money. The works council is outraged: “He has to pay to be allowed to work in the low-wage sector.”
Lieferando subsidizes necessary repairs with ten cents per kilometer driven. That doesn’t sound bad, but it ends at 44 euros a month. And that is nowhere near enough to cover the costs. “At Lieferando you are a consumable item, just like the work equipment,” says Díaz Fuentes. And: The basis of the business is “using other people’s bikes”. The employer must provide work equipment free of charge and also maintain the bikes without costing the employees anything, the works council demands.
Lieferando in Frankfurt and Offenbach
In Frankfurt and Offenbach At least 600 drivers work for Lieferando, including many migrants, people of color and foreign students. However, the works council does not have exact figures, also because of the constant change of employees. The works council estimates that between 350 and 450 riders deliver food for Lieferando every week.
The drivers use either the company’s e-bikes or their own bikes for work.
A works council in Frankfurt has been with Lieferando since 2018. This was first created by the former competitor Foodora and was retained when the delivery services were merged. prla
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If Lieferando does not meet the requirements imposed by the RP, the company faces a fine of 5000 euros. The Frankfurt SPD member of the Bundestag Ulli Nissen does not consider this to be expedient. “The company’s good reputation is much more expensive,” she says in solidarity with the bicycle couriers, whose working conditions “terrify her”.
Safety on the streets is relevant, especially since there have been more accidents with bicycle couriers in Frankfurt, explains Handrik Hallier, Secretary of the Rhine-Main section of the Food-Gourmet-Gaststätten (NGG) union, who looks after the Lieferando works council. There was also a death in November last year. However, Lieferando does not record precise accident data, complains the works council. Here too, Lieferando is pulling itself out of responsibility, criticizes Hallier.
Oliver Malsch, the head of the Lieferando branch in Frankfurt, does not want to comment on the allegations upon request. He refers to the headquarters in Berlin, which, however, does not help. In Berlin, you can’t say anything about the situation in Frankfurt, explains press spokesman Oliver Klug.
There have already been corona cases within the workforce, reports union secretary Hallier. It is not clear where the drivers are infected, but the risk of being infected with the corona virus is higher in the delivery service than in an office job, for example. For example, drivers would have a lot of contacts when they went into customers’ homes. Accordingly, more must be done for health protection. One concern of the union, in order to reduce the risk of infection, is to inform customers in the app to wear masks when they receive the food.
Some things have already improved in this regard: Lieferando now covers the costs for disinfectants and masks, says Hallier. At the beginning of the pandemic it was different.
“I’m not afraid of Corona,” says 21-year-old David. But he doesn’t believe that his bike is perfectly roadworthy. A few days ago a lamp fell off while driving. “But Lieferando doesn’t care.”
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