
Food-Delivery Couriers Exploit Desperate Migrants in France - l33tbro
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/16/business/uber-eats-deliveroo-glovo-migrants.html
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sandworm101
>>Uber Eats and competitors including Stuart, a French app, and Glovo, based
in Spain, said they were aware of misconduct. “We’re concerned because these
are illegal practices in which people are profiting from the vulnerability of
others,” said Nicolas Breuil, global marketing manager for Stuart.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Uber et al have for years argued that driver/riders are not employees. If they
aren't employees then they are contractors. One of the basic definitions of
contractors is that they may subcontract. To call subcontracting "illegal" is
a stretch. It may be a violation of a clause in the contract, but it isn't a
crime. Use of illegal labourers is a crime, but the simple act of having
someone other than the original contractor deliver the food isn't.

If Uber wants to deal with a particular person and ensure that only that
person handles the actual labor, Uber is free to HIRE that person.

~~~
iraldir
I believe the (official) problem here is that the subcontracted workers can't
be employed because they are underage, illegal immigrants etc.

~~~
sandworm101
As I said, using illegal labourers is a crime. But "profiting from the
vulnerability of others" is the basis of Uber's business model. It's laughable
to hear them complain about someone _else_ sidestepping labour standards to
pay people less than a minimum.

I think they are just upset that someone has managed to shave profit from
their system. Uber is jealous that it cannot access this ultra-cheap labour
pool itself.

~~~
Bakary
It's not laughable because they aren't hypocritical but cynical. They know
they can get away with this, and do.

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jakelazaroff
_> Uber Eats and competitors including Stuart, a French app, and Glovo, based
in Spain, said they were aware of misconduct. “We’re concerned because these
are illegal practices in which people are profiting from the vulnerability of
others,” said Nicolas Breuil, global marketing manager for Stuart._

They should look inward: basically the _entire gig economy_ is people
profiting from the vulnerability of others. If these companies could cut out
the middle man and pay people as little as these subcontractors are being
paid, they would.

~~~
devoply
Tax driver a respectable career that earned its drivers good pay until it got
exploited by billionaire capitalists, I mean disrupted.

~~~
cyrksoft
Care to elaborate a bit more? Where’s the exploitation?

Edit: typo

~~~
sandworm101
Taxi drivers were once largely independent operators, or they worked as
employees of taxi companies. In recent decades this was "disrupted". Drivers
became contractors who rented their cars and licenses (medallions) from
wealthy investors. That's how NYC medallions started being worth hundreds of
thousands of dollars. Now a taxi driver neither enjoys the freedoms of being
independent nor the security of being an employee. They live the worst of both
thanks to the disruption of the industry.

~~~
dantheman
Taxi drivers also provided a terrible experience, had dirty cabs, refused to
pick up people, would lie about the fare, take the long way, etc. Uber and the
other apps took a one time anonymous transaction where the cab driver didn't
care about repeat business and made it accountable. Much like yelp/trip
advisor hurting business for tourist trap restaurants. It aligns the
incentives.

~~~
sandworm101
Much of those problems with Taxis stemmed from the aforementioned previous
disruption of the industry. You care a lot less about your car when you don't
own it. You care a lot less about customer experience when you are not free to
deal with customers directly. You don't care about response times when you are
only ever dispatched from a central office, are forced to follow a GPS, and so
have no home territory or local knowledge. Taxis are bad today, but they
weren't always like that.

~~~
koolba
Bullshit. There has never been a time when riding in a taxi in NYC was
pleasant. It was always a terrible experience. And not just in contrast to
better options, it’s objectively bad and always has been.

My theory is that it’s because there’s no incentive for any individual driver
to improve. The odds of getting the same driver twice is effectively nil so
all they care about is not getting in trouble with the owners or the taxi
commission. Outside of that, anything to improve the service is a cost borne
solely by them which is not worth it.

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potatofarmer45
It's an extension what already happens in industries such as construction. If
you want to remodel your home in Florida, you'd hire a local contractor who
then subcontracts people who are almost certainly illegal immigrants from
Mexico to do the actual work at a much lower rate than if they hired
Americans.

The reality though is that it's not really exploitation because these often
illegal workers don't really have any other options. Anyone who has been to
Paris will tell how expensive it is. Ideally the arbitrage between the legal
contractor and the illegal sub-contractor is as small as possible but until
they have better options, to them this is better than nothing.

~~~
jakelazaroff
Using someone else's limitations (e.g. inability to work legally) as leverage
for your own gain (e.g. paying them an extremely low wage) might as well be
the textbook definition of exploitation.

~~~
threatofrain
Isn’t that just the definition of negotiation? Do you routinely expect
fairness in business negotiation when the reality between the parties are
anything but that?

~~~
jakelazaroff
They're two sides of the same coin, aren't they? "Exploitation" is just a very
one-sided negotiation.

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baud147258
Regarding the use of illegal migrants in sub-contracting work, their numbers
in the construction bussiness is orders of magnitude higher than in the gig-
courrier industry. They are usually employed by contractor / sub-contractor,
making any kind of control complicated; even then most people are taking
advantage of this so there's little incentives to change. The use of illegal
workers in construction is apparently driven by a race to the bottom in the
construction price, all the while prices are going up, especially in and
around Paris, the difference being pocketed by land owners/promoters.

Regarding the deliveries services, I've never used them, but they are imposing
externalities on everyone with their motor scooters parked in front of busy
fast-food places and drivers (not all of them, though) with little regard to
the traffic code (though it's in part caused by the incentives to deliver as
quickly as possible).

~~~
charlchi
International workers labor away for the profits of international capital.
People wonder why nationalism is rising...

~~~
lotsofpulp
International labor is taking advantage of the arbitrage that exists due to
wealth inequalities between different parts of the world.

Without the use of force (or natural borders via land, lack of information, or
language), wealth will flow from societies that have it to those that don't,
because the labor will be cheaper. Same situation as having a new store open
in town selling the same items for cheaper. Buyers will flock to it and the
original store will have to lower prices or offer a different product. Or put
up new barriers to entry (immigration, etc).

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elindbe2
It's the government that is accepting these people into the country while at
the same time telling them they can't legally work. They have to survive
somehow.

~~~
Scoundreller
It’s hard to say that they were « accepting » if they arrived clandestinely.

I’d rather claim that a colonizing country has the responsibility of taking
care of the people it colonized if it’s going to plunder its resources, but
not sure if this is the right venue for that.

~~~
Creationer
Not according to Charles de Gaulle:

"Have you seen the Muslims with their turbans and their djellabas
(traditional, hooded, long wool coats)? You can see that they are not French.
Try and integrate oil and vinegar. Shake the bottle. After a moment they
separate again. The Arabs are Arabs, the French are French. Do you think that
the French can absorb ten million Muslims who will tomorrow be twenty million
and after tomorrow forty? If we carry out integration, if all the Berbers and
Arabs of Algeria were regarded as French, how would one stop them coming to
settle on the mainland where the standard of living is so much higher? My
village would no longer be called Colombey-les-deux-Eglises [the two churches]
but Colombey-the-two-mosques."

~~~
Scoundreller
> Try and integrate oil and vinegar

Yeesh, CDG never heard of mustard. He must have had something against Dijon.

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elcomet
This is very sad. Regular earnings from Uber eats or similar are already way
too low to live in a city like Paris, so as a sub-contractor, I cannot imagine
how those people live. We are back to the 19th century and Victor Hugo novels.

~~~
lotsofpulp
They live similarly poor or poorer lives in the country of their origin also.

~~~
elcomet
So does this make it fine to let them live poorly in our countries? I don't
think so, we can certainly do better.

~~~
devoply
Yes we can't have them live poorly, they must be either paid fairly or denied
any money so as to leave. In other news Gig Workers create jobs for
underprivileged and unemployed immigrants.

~~~
rvense
This is never either-or. Those jobs should come with fair pay and benefits. In
whose interest is the new class of servants?

As a software developer, I know I am highly prized in the current market - but
this might change, and the people who are treating drivers and couriers as
disposable cogs would do the same to me given half the chance. Fighting for
worker's rights is self-preservation as much as it is a question of ethics.

~~~
charliesharding
Paying them more will drive up costs. When costs go up, less people use the
apps. When less people use the apps, delivery drivers get less money. Nothing
exists in a bubble and it's important to look at underlying issues rather than
crying foul play

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rb808
Isn't this just normal in the US? I'd expect 3/4 of the delivery guys in NYC
to be illegal too.

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ingenieros
Same thing is happening in Mexico, Colombia, Perú and Argentina with YC backed
Rappi. The fact that most of their recruits happen to be desperate Venezuelans
fleeing their country makes this practice all the more glaring.

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La-ang
"The fact that there is less money from the platforms has pushed poor people
to outsource to people even poorer than them,” said Jean-Daniel Zamor, a
courier organizer in Paris". It's welfare, not exploitation. But on the dark
side, those who exploit are less guilty than the giant gluttony-firms that
have no end to their greed.

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Scoundreller
I’ve wondered what’s going on with Uber in Paris. Almost all drivers are from
Francophone Africa, and, until recently, we’re almost all driving fairly nice
Peugeot 507s, as if a fleet was operating them.

The car-mix seems to have changed a lot recently. Dunno why.

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bbsimonbb
I found out about this from the mailing list of community bicycle workshops. I
have seen zero coverage in French press. I'm glad the NYT is as shocked as I
was.

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abtinf
What a bizarre use of the word "exploit". The _government_ is prohibiting
migrants from working, to the point where their only option is "stealing or
begging on the street." So of course the NYT places the blame on people who
provide an alternative, rather than go after the anti-life state policy.

~~~
hobs
Replace migrant with child. Does this hold?

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em500
It doesn't. Children have parents or legal guardians who must provide for
their livelihood. If they don't the government provides it. Such is not the
case for migrants.

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Scoundreller
Wouldn’t the « landlord » of the account be subject to a lot of taxes?

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umeshunni
_Illegal_ migrants, to be clear.

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baud147258
NY times won't show me the article if I'm in private mode. Do anyone know why
would they do that?

Edit: the site also detect Edge in non-private mode as running in private mode

~~~
datenhorst
It's so they can spot people reading more than 5 articles a month, which is
their "free quota" before they hit you with the pay wall, if i recall
correctly.

~~~
baud147258
It's 5 articles time the number of installed browsers on your computer; at
least it's what I do when I hit the paywall.

~~~
manfredo
Or just clear cookies after 5 articles.

