The CEOs of UK supermarkets have been warned of their “exposure to modern slavery risk” through partnerships with Deliveroo and Uber Eats, in the wake of a major study into courier services in France.
The study – based on interviews with 1,004 Uber Eats and Deliveroo couriers in Paris and Bordeaux – found wage withholding, confiscation of identity documents, threats of being reported to authorities, and blackmail to be rife among riders for the platforms.
It removed “any remaining ambiguity about what is being procured”, said Ben Knowles CEO of e-cargo bike logistics company Pedal Me in his letters to supermarket bosses.
The research – by the French government-funded Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) – found 64.4% of riders on the platforms had no right to remain in France, with 73.5% ‘renting’ their delivery account from a third party.
Of those renting accounts, nearly three in 10 reported wage withholding, confiscation of ID, threats of being reported to authorities, or blackmail from the account owner.
Each is considered an indicator of forced labour by the International Labour Office, as well as being “within the scope” of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, Knowles warned.
“The evidence is now peer-reviewed. ‘We didn’t know’ is no longer a defence,” Knowles told The Grocer.
“These aren’t fringe operators. [The supermarkets] all have modern slavery statements. They all say they take this seriously. The question is whether that means anything when the evidence lands on their desk. We’re about to find out.”
Late last week, a coalition of French delivery workers’ advocacy groups filed a criminal complaint against Deliveroo and Uber Eats, accusing them of “human trafficking”. The complaint says the platforms “make significant profits by exploiting the vulnerability of these workers”.
“We firmly reject these allegations, which have no legal basis and fundamentally misrepresent our business model and core values,” an Uber spokesperson said of the complaint. “In France, our structured dialogue with elected courier representatives has already delivered tangible improvements to earnings and working conditions. We remain steadfast in our commitment to evolving and strengthening the courier experience on Uber.”
A spokesperson for Deliveroo said: “We firmly reject these allegations. The quality of rider working conditions, safety and pay have always been and remain a priority for us, and we remain committed to constructive dialogue with rider representatives and continuing to build on the quality of self-employed work.”
In his letter to CEOs, Knowles says “Deliveroo’s UK operation is not a different company to its French one. Uber Eats’s UK operation is not a different company to its French one” and argues “it is almost certain that the same pattern of abuse…is running at commercial scale inside the UK Deliveroo and Uber Eats workforces that fulfil your orders”.
Knowles pre-empts the supermarkets’ possible defence that its “contracting relationship is with the platform, not its workforce” by pointing out that “supplier self-assurances do not satisfy a buyer’s own due diligence obligation once that buyer has credible contrary evidence”.
Last year, Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat committed to strengthening verification checks on delivery riders to clamp down on illegal working, after the government demanded action to prevent immigration offending on their platforms.
While the delivery companies made initial checks on those who want to work for them, verifying their age and right to work, they had not until 2024 extended this to individuals that could be subcontracted to a rider’s account.
The firms agreed to increase the use of facial verification checks and fraud detection technology to ensure only registered account holders can work off their platforms. Deliveroo and Uber Eats increased the quantity and sophistication of verification checks, with Just Eat upping the same checks from monthly to daily.
However, non-profit Worker Info Exchange has argued that that despite the extended checks, “gig employers continue to exploit migrant workers”. “The elephant in the room is why platforms would even want to allow substitutes when people with the right to work could just sign up directly,” it said.
Pedal Me has launched a crowd-sourced research survey for recipients of aggregator app orders to report whether their order was delivered by the courier and vehicle the app said it would be.
Knowles said his company – which delivers for Pasta Evangelists, DabbaDrop, Patty & Bun, Pizza Pilgrims, Pure and The Salad Project, among others – declined an approach from Uber to partner on modern slavery grounds. “That decision cost us revenue we badly needed,” he said. “We took it anyway.”
“We’re not a campaign group. We’re a logistics operator competing directly with these platforms. We see what’s happening on the ground every day and hear confirmation from across the sector,” Knowles said. “For moral as well as fair competition reasons, it just isn’t possible for us to stay quiet on the widespread tolerance of forced labour working conditions.
“They say they have robust checks in place. They’ve been saying that since 2019. Our own data shows more than half of deliveries in London are at times completed by someone other than the registered account holder. Those two things can’t both be true.”
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