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Another Liverpool subcontractor, who declined to be named for fear of losing his job, has also had problems. He claimed that Randstad would not compensate remote couriers they could work from home instead of from a Just Eat delivery centre if they had problems with their bikes when they were supposed to be working. “If my bike blows out or breaks down, [Randstad] Won’t put me on hold, they’ll close my app,” the courier said. “So even for an hour or two, there’s no pay. ”
Responding to the allegations, Rachael Langton, Randstad’s UK operations director, said the company’s “bespoke agency employee delivery model in partnership with Just Eat” allows couriers “to enjoy job flexibility and benefits, including hourly wages (above minimum wage/living wage), Sick pay, holiday pay and superannuation contributions.” Andrew Kenny, managing director of Just Eat UK, said the company took courier benefits very seriously. “Just Eat is the first takeaway aggregator in the UK to offer a worker model where couriers receive hourly wages, sick pay, holiday pay and superannuation contributions,” he said.
Scholars who study the platform economy worry that outsourcing is primarily designed to shield high-profile gig economy companies from more scrutiny when labor issues inevitably arise. “Subcontracting lets them say, ‘We don’t have a relationship with this courier. We have a relationship with the subcontractor, and they’ll take care of it,” said Matt Cole, a researcher at Oxford University research group Fairwork. But he still believes that Just Eat’s use of Randstad is a step in the right direction, even if the contract is only temporary, running for six months. “It’s better than the self-employed, independent contractor standards that existed in the early days of the gig economy,” he said. “But it’s basically just one step up the erratic ladder towards standard employment contracts.”
It was unclear how much Just Eat’s outsourcing cost, as the company and Randstad declined to disclose financial details about the contract.But in Randstad’s latest results released in October 2021, the company reported that 57% increase In the UK (although it did not provide revenue figures), the quarterly increase was much larger than any other European country. Speaking on the earnings call, the company’s CEO, Jacques van den Brooke, attributed the growth to logistics, e-commerce and the gig economy.
The following month, Just Eat CEO Jitse Groen Randstad Capital Markets Day— a campaign aimed at sharing more information about the company with investors and analysts — and said the main challenge facing companies is hiring enough people, especially in a market where unemployment is very low. “Obviously it’s been difficult for us to recruit a lot of people in so many different markets, so parties like Randstad help us sign contracts and recruit these people for us,” he said.
Outsourcing staff isn’t new to Just Eat. In 2017, three years before it announced plans to offer couriers more benefits, it struck a deal with Stuart that, unlike those who work for Randstad, still allows riders to pay per visit.The company operated in obscurity until it tried to move from £4.50 to £3.40, prompted couriers in Sheffield, England, to strike in December.
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