In Uberland, author Alex Rosenblat paints a dismal picture of a company that has not only lost touch with ethical behavior internally, but also shows little real care and consideration for the 2 million or so drivers it has around the world.

Whilst her work largely focuses on Uber, it could clearly apply to various other gig economy platforms that have adopted a similar business model.  It’s a world that differs from the image (albeit one backed up by independent research!) of independent entrepreneurs doing work they love at hours that suit them, and more one of technological servitude that is neither well paid or in any way secure.

Where Uberland tends to fall down is that it is very anecdotal and uses stories of the poor behavior towards or experiences of various Uber drivers, interspersed with the very real breaches in trust and ethical conduct from the company itself.  Does it fairly represent the millions of people working in the gig economy however?

The European Trade Union Institute have added their thoughts to the mix via a new report, which investigates just what life is like for Deliveroo delivery riders in Belgium.

Delivering a good living

The paper examined working life at food delivery company Deliveroo between 2016-2018. Whereas many gig economy platforms utilize proprietory platforms to manage the hiring and assignment of workers, Deliveroo utilized a third party service, called SMart, to do this. This seemingly trivial move was actually crucial as it ensured that the Deliveroo riders ensured employment status, and therefore the various protections that come with that, albeit via SMart rather than Deliveroo directly.

SMart also allowed the researchers access to all driver data, thus allowing them to explore how workers feel about gig work, what kind of hours and incomes they secured, and what aspects of the work they liked and disliked.

“In this way, we can understand better the nature of the flexibility entailed in this type of platform work and the actual preferences of workers for particular working assignments,” the authors say.

So, what did the data reveal?  Firstly, most of the drivers used by Deliveroo are young men who typically only work with the company for a short time.  Indeed, roughly half of the drivers had only been driving for under seven months, with a large number of these working as a side hustle alongside studying.  The typical driver worked just 23 hours per month, with a median of 17 hours.

Full income

On the surface this looks to be a perfect example of how gig work affords people the flexibility to fit work around their existing lifestyle.  Indeed, even as the data suggests that Deliveroo driving was the main source of income for most drivers, if it’s primarily a side gig then that still largely applies.

Does the same apply for those for whom Deliveroo driving is their full-time job?  Here the situation gets a little murkier, as drivers don’t tend to get paid very well, with a guaranteed hourly rate of €11, with a bonus of €2 if you make three deliveries per hour.  This rate was not only lower for students, but also not quite as rosy once outsourced to the SMart platform.

“Deliveroo relied predominantly on the student workforce, with students constituting 82.9% of riders according to SMart administrative records,” the authors say. “Deliveroo, who had full control of hiring and shift allocation, had a strong incentive to provide work to students.”

Once costs were stripped out, the data suggests an average monthly income of €720, which is some way below the average in Belgium, and forced many Deliveroo drivers to taken on additional work to make ends meet (often via other gig platforms).

Flexible work

Interestingly however, the income was not really the main source of discontent for many workers.  For many, the main bugbear was the lack of flexibility in the work.  Just as with Uber, drivers were attracted to the work by the promise of being autonomous and independent workers, but just as with Uber, they ended up being pretty tightly controlled by the algorithms that determine the work patterns of each driver.

Both Uber and Deliveroo typically exert extremely tight control over work patterns as their algorithms distribute drivers to meet the ebb and flow of demand throughout the day.  This typically means that drivers aren’t so much able to determine their own work patterns to fit around their life, but instead have to try and fit their life around the often unpredictable and short-term shift patterns assigned them by the Deliveroo algorithms.

“When questioned about their ability to sign up for the shifts they wanted, 10% reported that they could never, or rarely, access them, while a further 30% was able to access their preferred shifts only on occasion,” the authors say. “Almost half (46%) thought the shift system was not transparent, with one-third (32.6%) reporting that the system was too rigid for riders.”

A degree of realism

Of course, most Deliveroo drivers were realistic enough to accept that the company didn’t exist for their personal benefit, and as such were happy to accept a bit of give and take in their relationship with the company.  What most wanted however was a sense of fairness in the way they were treated.

It’s a feeling that was replicated in a research environment by a study that explored how people feel being managed by an algorithm. It found that most of the time people are happy with an automated manager.  Or at least, they were so long as things were running smoothly. When there were disagreements, then the relationship broke down quite rapidly.

This gets to the nub of things, as an analysis of Uber drivers came to a similar conclusion.  While Uber’s AI performs many of the functions of a manager, drivers feel they have little ability to air grievances, pitch new ideas or even influence changes to their work, all of which would be possible with a human manager.  This is compounded by the fact that most decisions made by Uber about their platform focus on the customer rather than the driver.

“All of Uber’s different management decisions are embodied in the platform as the company’s platform is actually doing the management,” the authors say. “When we looked at it, Uber’s platform seems to focus on one user — the person who wants a ride — somewhat at the expense of the drivers.”

Whilst the gig economy clearly has a number of issues to work through to make it a more equitable relationship between the platform and the workers, perhaps a good start would be to make the relationship more two-way, and enable workers more of the autonomy and control that is on the brochure.