2. Delivery Hero

oh I have a delivery. Oh my gosh. Whoa holy crap it's a $383 order. 20 custom salads. I feel like that's not gonna fit in my bag. Maybe they're small. Well let's hope so. That's me on my first shift, getting my first order as a food courier. I'm with producer Laura Regare which is a good thing because not only is the order huge it's hard to navigate the city on a tight timeline. So let's just wait and see what they tell me to do. And it keeps telling it mess is messaging me like every 30 seconds telling me like that is beating at me telling me that it's overdue. Most couriers in Toronto use their bikes and traverse city streets at sometimes breakneck speeds. I'm not that brave. In 200 meters your destination will be on the left. Oh there it is, this right there. Oh I signed up to deliver food with my car. This one's gonna be a bit of a challenge parking wise I think. There was a bit of a learning curve. I got to the restaurant and I was like trying to zip up my bag and it wouldn't fit. I forgot my phone there so I had to run back and then I dropped my other bag in the street and some lady had to like pick up all my stuff for me. It's not not nailing it. I worked as a courier a few months before COVID-19 caused life as we knew it to dramatically change. Schools closed. Parks were off limits. Restaurants could only offer meals for take-out and delivery. Overnight, food couriers became essential. What once had been almost an invisible job was thrust into the spotlight and the pandemic very publicly exposed the challenges couriers face every day. I'm Sara Morchita-Hedzadeh. This is Hustle. A podcast where we explore what it means when your boss is an app. I've been following a scrappy group of Toronto food couriers as they take on a multinational company. They're hoping for a better pay and more protections on the job. And while there's nothing new about a dangerous workplace, I find out that couriers are exposed in ways I hadn't anticipated. Fudora is a worldwide delivery market platform that allows customers to discover the wide variety of incredible foods near them without ever having to leave their homes or offices. This is the instructional video I have to watch when applying for my career job in December 2019. You're responsible for the safe transport of your customers' delicious order so ride and drive carefully. Once I send in photos of my passport, driver's license, and car insurance, I'm approved. The final step, a 30-minute orientation session at Fudora's sleek downtown headquarters. I'm not able to record the session, but there are about 10 of us in the room. Half men, half women, a mix of young and older people. You offer a door-to-door service. Always bring your delivery bag right to the customer's door. We learn a bit about the company and are told about basic pay rates. We'll make $4.50 a delivery plus a dollar for every kilometer from the restaurant to the drop-off. Plus, we might get a tip. There is a tipping option built into the app, but never ask a customer directly for a tip. We're told on average, the hourly wage is $18.70. Almost $5.00 above minimum wage. But as I soon find out, it's not that easy. Oh, we're only two minutes away. In 200 meters, your destination will be on the left. I mean, I look ridiculous currently because I'm just drowning under a pile of salads. Each delivery app has its own payment structure. Okay, so we're gonna turn right on to come see. But there's one common theme. Much of the time spent on the job is unpaid. It's 600 meters, so I guess I got 60 cents for that portion, or maybe they are super generous and round up. As a courier for Fudora, I'm only paid for the distance I travel between the restaurant and the customer. The app tells me when an order will be ready for pick-up. Three items, right? Three, yeah, yeah, say it. One with more, and one for you. If it's not ready on time, Fudora will pay me an extra $5. But that's only after I've had to wait 20 minutes beyond what the app predicted. That's why tips are so important. And if I get a parking ticket while on delivery, is that a parking enforcement guy? It could wipe out my day's earnings. Yeah, he just walked by and looked in. Yeah, okay, yeah, let's just get out of here. That's why my $383 salad order ends up being so significant. It earns me a $20 tip. Even with that, I don't make a minimum wage. By the end of my first shift, I'm feeling frazzled and a little defeated. I just felt like flustered because I don't really understand how to use the app. I'm like trying to drive as well as like manage what's going on on my phone and thinking about timing and everything and thinking about parking. Over the course of three and a half hours, I made four deliveries earning a grand total of $48.61. That's $13.89 an hour before expenses, including gas, car insurance, and the $3 I had to spend at Starbucks to use their customer only bathroom. If I don't include the $20 tip on that huge salad order, I make just $8.17 an hour. Half of my customers didn't tip at all. Oh, and I still owe Fedora $50 for my new delivery bag. So really, I didn't make a penny. Granted, I'm a total novice. But low wages aren't the only problem on courier's minds. Toronto ambulance, where do you need us? There's a bike path. It's a warm Friday evening in mid-September. Toronto's waterfront is bustling. The designated bike lane is full of commuters, tourists, and couriers. 24-year-old courier Ivan Ostos is slight and has a distinctive moustache. He sometimes bikes up to 100 kilometers a day. Ivan's been exploring the city on two wheels since he was a kid. I would ride to school, write to my college, you know, work. So I've always done this. And even growing up here, I always knew it was dangerous. Both my parents would ride their bikes, but they wouldn't ride like I did, like going to work and stuff. They were like, "That's crazy." So. Do they worry about you? Yeah, big time. Like, I remember both my parents didn't really want me to do this. Does something Ivan's parents didn't want him to do? Make food deliveries on his bike. Basically, I was riding on Queen's Key on a food or a delivery to a customer, and I was trying to pass another cyclist. This cyclist in front of me was a lot less experienced than me because he seemed to get, like, it startled him. And what he did was then he went perpendicularly, totally left, where I was going to pass him. So then I just went directly into him, went over and landed on my elbow. Yeah, it was pretty bad. Ivan's been a food courier for four years. What part of the body was injured? He's had a few minor accidents, but this one stands out. All that he's arms and legs are all scraped up with a road rash. He can't really move his right on, just keeping the arms free. Okay. Ivan broke his elbow that summer night and couldn't work for four and a half months. That was the most serious injury I ever had. I had to have surgery the next day. I was in a cast for a few weeks. Had to do physiotherapy. I still have the the metal kind of, I want to say, brace that they put in to make the bone heel properly. I wanted to know more about the risk's courier's face on the job, but detailed injury reports aren't publicly available in Canada. So I filed a freedom of information request and received two years of injury reports that Fudora submitted to Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. This is the form that Fudora has to fill out when there's been an accident. Some of the details are alarming. Okay. This one is from May 2017. face first on to road. Two front teeth damaged, one chipped, one loose to the point of broken, open wound and bleeding nose, upper lip, mouth, cheek, and hands/body. Fudora filed 61 injury reports between 2017 and 2019. This one is from April 2018. Courier turning left on an advanced green, a car traveling west at 40 kilometers an hour impacted him. He went partway through front windshield, cracked glass, police on scene. Couriers don't get health benefits and because they're independent contractors, if their bikes, phones, or bags are damaged on the job, those costs aren't covered either. This one is from 2017 again, September concussion, lacerated left knee needed stitches, cut on lower back, bicycle got totalled. So a serious accident like the one Ivan had would be a huge financial hit. Money wise, I was better prepared than most people because having listened to my parents and all these people told me I was crazy in doing dangerous work. I anticipated that maybe one day I would get in a serious injury and I would have to support myself for at least a certain amount of time. So basically, I had a savings account that was more or less just for that. You know, just case you ever get injured, you're good. Unlike a lot of other at-based companies in Toronto, Fudora paid into the workers compensation system. That means if couriers get injured on the job, they're able to apply for income replacement. The problem is, in Ontario, the system isn't really set up for gig workers like Ivan. Your payout is capped at 85% of your average earnings over the last four weeks of work. That means if you get sick or have a slow month, your payout would be very small. Well, I can tell you in my case it ended up being 210 bucks a week. So less than a thousand dollars a month. Yeah, basically. Would that cover your rent? Not even close. No, it wouldn't cover my rent with utilities. And I live in a very, very, very cheap place with three other people and a cat. So when I signed up to be a courier, I was told to ride or drive safely to obey the rules of the road. At Fudora, we take pride in supporting our couriers and creating a sense of community. A community, you might soon be a part of. Thank you for your interest and ride safe. It was there actually anything about how to be safe. I just want to scroll back and see if we miss that somehow. I hadn't missed anything. Couriers told me that for them, the absence of safety training on the job represents a huge risk. But when Ontario's Labour Relations Board began hearing the courier's case, Fudora tried to use the lack of training to prove their case. They were a hands-off tech platform, not employers responsible for health and safety. The reality is that we have terrible infrastructure and there are not the supports and protection in place for us out there. Toronto lawyer Dave Shelna represents cyclists who have been in accidents. He's also an avid rider and organizes free workshops for couriers to help address their safety concerns. Like I said, I'm a way to work. I almost get hit. On the way to home from work, I almost get hit. It's like every day, it's something, unfortunately. Dave believes a lot of changes are needed to make the roads safer for everyone. He thinks politicians need to improve infrastructure. Drivers need to pay more attention. An app companies like Fudora should take responsibility for the workers they put on the road. These are citizens working. They're working for you know last every day and they ought to be protected in their jobs. The workers' compensation board keeps track of injury rates across 150 employment sectors. Fudora was grouped in with other courier services, including private companies that deliver packages. When I compare Fudora's 2018 record with the overall injury rate for this category, it was six times higher. I want to compare Fudora with its direct competitors, but I can't. That's because other app-based companies haven't registered with the WSIB or they registered so recently that their injury records aren't yet available. Fudora declined my interview requests for this podcast, but in a written statement, the company said it, quote, "couldn't speculate as to why its injury rates were significantly higher." Part of the reason that I work or I try to work every day, if there is an opportunity to make money today, I am healthy, I am fit, my bicycle works, I have a shift, then I should take it, because I don't know that that will be there tomorrow or next week. Jennifer Scott has worked as a bike career for two years. What is your experience being like riding around the streets of Toronto in terms of just feeling safe on your bike? I don't feel safe on sorry, I feel very confident in myself and my ability to make decisions that make it difficult for others to put me in harm's way, and that's sort of the mindset that I cycle with. Anything there was a time when I didn't have those skills and I don't know why I did not get more hurt. What are some of the incidents you've experienced on the road? I have been so fortunate to have experienced only minor collisions. Somebody passing me too close and their car touching me and that either causing me to fall or hurting me or being like cut off when someone pulls into the bike lane or makes a turn and they don't signal like that kind of thing. I asked Rudora why it didn't provide any safety training to careers. The company responded that it expects careers to quote have pre-existing knowledge of how to use their own equipment safely and to understand the rules of the road. But there's more to safety than bylaws and road conditions. Our phone numbers are not hidden from customers or restaurants and many, many workers have had negative experiences because of that. Couriers use their own personal phones on the job and sometimes need to call customers about an order. Hearing stories from workers about customers contacting them at a later time after completing the delivery is very common and it's one that I share receiving the threatening or unsafe messages at any point during a delivery is also common. Jennifer says that being a woman adds a layer of danger to the job. My personal experience has always been like of a sexual nature and that the messages or the phone calls are harassing in that type of way. How does that make you feel? Deeply unhappy. You know when we talk about any kind of gendered violence or harassment or safety issues, we always talk about the complex emotional feelings that come with that, right? What do you do to keep yourself safe on the job from that kind of harassment? So I use a VoIP app which is like an app that you can download that gives you an internet phone number. So then when a contact customer is they have this this fake phone number to reach me at and I can choose to delete that number at any point in time. In a written response to my questions, Fedora says this issue requires a quote app feature update that our global team is working on. While most of Fedora's competitors already conceal career's phone numbers, there's a common theme here. When it comes to gig workers, app companies assume few legal responsibilities for working conditions. When that beep comes in from the Fedora system, I always try to respond quickly, which also means I'm constantly still on the road moving and it's kind of scary. Courier Houston González says that the pace and time pressures are especially stressful for him behind the wheel. I'm worried about being stuck with and what would be the term distracted driving charge and just being at the risk of actually just looking down to my phone and suddenly not realizing that there's a pedestrian or there's another car in front of me and not breaking in time and causing some sort of accident or hitting a pedestrian. When I first started covering this story and the hearings, I'd heard a lot about the risks app-based careers face. I'd heard their concerns about the app-based company's hands-off attitude. But as I spoke to more careers and then got a job as one myself, I discovered this hands-off approach impacts things I hadn't anticipated. Oh hi, I'm calling because I have car insurance through you but I want to change it. When I signed up to make deliveries with my car, Fudora asked for a photo of my insurance pink slip. Okay, which company are you working for? It's through Fudora. Fudora. And it's like I skip the dishes. Yeah. Yeah. Since the company asked for proof of insurance, I initially assumed that meant my existing insurance policy would cover me while I worked. I was wrong. Yeah. Uh, that's difficult. They don't know if any companies to be quite honest with you that will allow food delivery. Producer Laura Regarani began trying to figure out what kind of car insurance I'd need and how much the policy would cost. Thanks for calling for your insurance. How may I help you? I was wondering, do you provide insurance for cars? Like, if I were to use it over and one of the apps that do delivery, no, we don't. Not for food delivery. No deliveries of any kind. OK, so here's the thing. For us, is that considered commercial insurance? Which we do not cover. So you can definitely Google it. Collectively, we called 23 insurance companies across Ontario. I'm guessing most drivers who plan to deliver food through apps don't do this. Food delivery? That's actually something like delivery services that we don't have coverage with. It's just because you're with the delivery services issues with on time restraints, more frequency on the road as well using the vehicle. We only found one auto insurance company that would give us a quote. In fact, insurance and its subsidiaries have an exclusive arrangement with Uber. They'll cover drivers for Uber and Uber Eats. But only as long as you drive for Uber ride sharing and only deliver food part time. So what about all the other drivers? I was working at the time as a casual teaching assistant. So I would do supply work, go in, went and needed. And so skip the dishes was something that could fit in my schedule. I could do it when I wanted, make some extra money, easy cash, kind of thing. Like Danya Mayato began working for Food delivery apps, skip the dishes in December 2018. Like me, she found it pretty easy to get the job. So everything was uploaded online. So you had to take a picture of your driver's license. You had to take a picture of your insurance slip. I'm pretty sure your license plate with the sticker on it. Because I remember my sticker needed to be renewed. And so they didn't accept it at first. So you would just assume that they're checking your insurance. Nobody mentions anything about getting special insurance. One day after about two months on the job, Tanya was on her way to pick up an order. I just felt the impact. Like I was looking straight, driving straight. So I was sort of teaboned, in a sense, and didn't see it coming. Tanya wasn't badly hurt. She reported the accident to her insurance company. It wasn't until my insurance company contacted me. And then they were asking me how the accident happened. And I said, I was working at the time. And she said, what do you mean you were working at the time? And I said, I was driving for skip finishes. And she said, did you report that to your insurance company? And I said, I wasn't aware I had to. I thought, I'm driving for work the same way. I would drive for work for my other job. I didn't realize it was any different. And I hadn't been told it was any different. So I just assumed I was covered for what I was doing. And she kind of had a long pause and just basically told me that she thinks I might run into an issue because I didn't report this to my insurance company. So I was quite taken back by that. Tanya's insurance company canceled her policy and retroactively revoked her coverage until the day before she started working for skip the dishes. That meant she was no longer insured, but she was on the hook for her entire repair bill. $7,500 in damages. It was devastating. I couldn't believe it. I had not anticipated any of this happening. I'm not a stupid person. It wasn't something that I just overlooked. It really was never brought into light that you needed to do this. Like we're talking about people's lives and accidents and serious things happening to not think that it's something that you have to share with people that they have to do is wrong to me. I just-- After many phone calls to many insurance companies, brokers, and regulators, I finally got some answers. I was told an organization called the Facility Association exists for the sole purpose of ensuring drivers deemed high risk. The range we were given for delivering food through an app in Toronto between $6,000 and $15,000 a year. In Ontario, the average cost is about $1,500. According to Fedora's evidence that the labor board hearings, its average career makes around $6,000 a year. That's working part time. The company also disclosed information about four careers who deliver full time. They earned just under $16,000. If I could go back, I probably wouldn't do it. To be honest, I would find other ways to make the extra money, just because the risk and what everything that happened afterwards was not worth it. It wasn't worth it. We reached out to skip the dishes to discuss their policy, but they didn't respond. It happened at a light, and the person made an advance left, and there was no left turn there. Some careers do know that standard car insurance policies won't cover them while they're making deliveries. I basically was trying to go straight, and would not be able to stop the car, and ended up hitting the back of their car. We're concealing this career's identity because he has an ongoing insurance claim. The car actually started to smoke my car. Literally smoke was coming out, both airbags were deployed, so it was a very traumatic experience. One of his first thoughts when he got hit? I didn't want to be sitting in the back seat. What to do with his delivery bag? So I just hit it in the trunk. If I have been doing that career work on an offer, as a private contractor, and most insurance companies won't even take you using your car for deliveries. So this driver didn't tell his insurer that he was delivering for Fudora. If you tell them, you either will be paying up the roof, or they won't even take you. I tell him about the Facility Association Insurance quote we were given to cover at-based food delivery, the one that ranged between $6,000 and $15,000 a year. Based on the wages that you and other careers make, would it make sense for you financially to purchase that kind of insurance? $15,000 definitely not. I mean, even $6,000. If I'm doing it full-time, it's still very high. You'd have to be working a lot of hours. You'd have to be getting a lot of good pictures of like that. Would you say most car careers with a delivery app don't have proper insurance? Oh, definitely. In a written statement, Fudora told me it is, quote, the responsibility of the writer to ensure they have the relevant and necessary insurance. I think unless we fundamentally deal with the way in which companies are hiding their responsibilities, we're actually never going to be able to ensure that people have basic protections. Deena Lad is with the Workers Action Center in Toronto. And if your company will be damaged by having those basic standards, well, I don't think your company should exist. For Deena, change is essential and long overdue. I am already seeing the long-term cost because I am working with cleaners and drivers who have not been protected for decades. We don't have to wait till 2040 to see what the costs are for gig workers. When they lose their job or when something happens, when they're injured, there is nothing left. They fall into debt. They end up on social assistance. Their health suffers. They're not paying into the Canada pension plan, right? Because they're considered to be self-employed. And so long-term consequences is no pension, no social safety net, the health impacts of constantly having to work gig after gig after gig, no access to benefits, no drug and dental benefits. And that is what is the future for many of these workers are if this goes into every other sector. This reality is why careers like Ivan Ostos have poured so much energy into challenging this business model. Workers organizing, such as in the Fudor case, this is just the first step. Once we've won our own better rights and protections from the company, I want to do more things that have a broader impact. The other apps, other careers, branching out to just other industries of people who need to organize. This whole labor thing that we had to go through was all just a bureaucratic legal thing 'cause the way this industry has regulated has not been kept up. That's not gonna change really when we form a union and have a better contract with Fudor. Would that has to change? - The laws need to change. - Exactly, so that's a step that has to happen. So basically I'm saying that this has the potential to grow and become something I think really good for changing society as a whole. whole. Next time on Hustle. If your goal as a company is to turn a pile of money into a bigger pile of money, a worker that you have obligations to financial obligations is a liability. And so I think this sort of culture of cutting away as many liabilities and obligations, especially financial and legal ones as possible, is intimately bound up with what is the goal of this sector or industry sort of financially and economically. Hustle was jointly produced by the Toronto Star and Antica Productions. It was written and produced by myself and Antica producer Laura Regare. Kathleen Goldhar is our story editor and executive producer at Antica. Mitch Stewart is our audio producer. Mixing in sound design by Phil Wilson and Stewart Cox is president of Antica Productions. Janet Hurley is senior editor at the Toronto Star and Irene Gentle is editor-in-chief. Hustle is made possible thanks to the ongoing support of the Atkinson Foundation. If you liked this podcast, please subscribe to the Toronto Star's daily podcast This Matters. Posts Adrian Chang, Sabah Etchizaz and Raju Mudhar discuss stories of Canadian cultural, economic and political importance. You can find it at thestar.com or wherever you listen to your podcast.