The first union of “Paris two-wheeled delivery companies” was created on Saturday June 26 in order to defend the self-employed platforms and to provide them with a “Power of action”, announced one of its representatives to Agence France-Presse.
This union, affiliated with the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), aims to “Bring together delivery people from different platforms to be representative and make people heard [leur] voice “, declared Mandjou Karaboue, elected Secretary General on Saturday, and himself a two-wheeled delivery man. “More than demands, we will now have the power to act to enforce the law”, he continued.
Among the priority actions of this structure, Mr. Karaboue cited “Taking into account occupational accidents, the daily life of two-wheelers”, and “The fight against racism that can be suffered from some customers”.
The conquest of new rights
Some 70 delivery people employed by different platforms (Uber Eats, Frichti, Deliveroo…) participated Saturday morning in Paris in the founding congress of this union, according to Ludovic Rioux, of the CGT national collective of delivery people (on which the said union will depend). It is the eighth local structure dedicated to the defense of platform deliverers moving on two wheels. Similar unions already exist in Bordeaux, Toulouse and Lyon.
The ambition of this union is “To organize the work of delivery people at the local level, to improve [les] working conditions [de ces derniers] and to work for the regularization of undocumented migrants ”, very numerous among the two-wheeled couriers, has also argued Mr. Rioux.
In a statement, the delivery men in Paris underlined their “Desire to organize for the conquest of new rights, as opposed to employers’ policies of breaking social gains, of which they are paying the price: misappropriation of employee status, fraud on social contributions, hidden work”.
Last week, around fifty couriers, mostly black, gathered at Place de la République at the call of the Collective of autonomous Parisian delivery people of platforms to denounce discrimination and say “Stop insults, [aux] assaults, [au] racism, [au] contempt, [à la] devaluation “.