Deliveroo and the gig economy

Research from the Centre of Employment Relations, Innovation and Change has featured in Computer Weekly on the 25 March 2021, in an article about Deliveroo's upcoming Initial Public Offering.

The article reports on the pushback from two major UK fund managers, Aviva Investors and Aberdeen Standards, who are refusing to buy shares in delivery food giant Deliveroo ahead of the company’s upcoming Initial Public Offering (IPO) in April, citing concerns abour Deliveroo riders’ working conditions and pay. Deliveroo riders are classed as self-employed, meaning they are not guaranteed holiday leave, sick pay or a minimum wage. 

The article reported on research conducted by the Centre of Employment Relations, Innovation and Change (CERIC), which found that from an analysis of 527 gig economy-related protest incidents between 1 January 2017 and 20 May 2020, “the company with most incidents was Deliveroo, which accounted for more than a quarter of all protest events (28.5%)”.

CERIC members Dr Ioulia Bessa, Dr Simon Joyce, Denis Neumann, Dr Vera Trappmann, Dr Charles Umney and Professor Mark Stuart created a database of platform worker protest in August 2020: the Leeds Index of Platform Labour Protest (The Leeds Index), which tracks instances of protests from platform workers across the world.

Read the full article on Computer Weekly.

Find out more about the Leeds Index of Platform Labour Protest.