The British takeaway platform Deliveroo has been criticized by the industry for preventing delivery riders from viewing delivery fees from different rival takeaway platforms, which undermines the right of delivery riders to increase their income.
Rodeo is one such platform for delivery riders, which allows them to see how much different food delivery companies offer (including Just Eat and Uber). On Sunday, local time, the platform sent a notice to about 10,000 users that Deliveroo was blocking delivery riders from accessing data on the company’s platform. Its notification email was obtained by the media.
According to the report, restaurant delivery riders in the market typically work for multiple delivery companies at the same time, and they can switch back and forth between Deliveroo and competitors to get delivery orders. With the consent of the delivery riders, the Rodeo platform allows them to view their real-time earnings on a single app, especially regarding which restaurant delivery platform has the most attractive delivery rates for a particular order.
In recent weeks, Deliveroo has made a security upgrade to the software used by delivery riders, and in addition to Rodeo, payroll integration tool Argyle and other third-party companies have been denied access to Deliveroo’s rider earnings information.
Shaf Hussain, a delivery rider who works for multiple food delivery platforms, said Deliveroo’s move will harm the rights of delivery riders. Hussain said that the work data Deliveroo collects through its delivery riders should be owned by the riders themselves, but for now, Deliveroo doesn’t want that data to go to outsiders.
Alex Marshall, president of the IWGB, a union that represents workers in the odd-job economy, said that next month the IWGB will launch a judicial challenge in court against Deliveroo for the right to collectively bargain for the wages of delivery riders.
Marshall said Deliveroo’s ban on third-party platforms from accessing delivery fee information amounts to a barrier to delivery riders using information tools that help them make decisions.
In May, Deliveroo and GMB, another union representing delivery riders, reportedly signed an agreement to characterize its delivery riders as independent outsourced workers, and Rodeo co-founder Alfie Pearce-Higgins said the move to ban access to delivery rider data shows that Deliveroo’s contradictory approach to the independence of its delivery riders.
In Deliveroo’s view, it is advantageous for delivery riders to have independence if they are providing delivery services for them, and once the riders ask for control of their own data and share it with other third-party service providers, this is when independence is met with resistance, Higgins said.
The dispute comes on the heels of Deliveroo’s recent 2022 earnings report, which showed weak growth last year, with total transactions on the delivery platform increasing by just 9%, compared to a 70% increase in 2021.
As a food delivery platform, Deliveroo is facing a number of business pressures, such as high inflation, which has caused consumers in Europe and the U.S. to cut back on non-essential expenses, including meals delivered to their doorsteps, and high inflation, which has prompted delivery riders to ask for higher delivery service fees.
In January, Rodeo released delivery fees for European and American food delivery platforms last year, with Deliveroo’s delivery fee per order dropping 0.3% last year compared to 2021, Uber’s delivery fee dropping 1.13 %, and Just Eat’s delivery fee dropping a whopping 6.1 %.
In response to industry criticism, Deliveroo said the company supports the services Rodeo provides to delivery riders, particularly in helping them understand job data, but that Rodeo and external partner Argyle are accessing the Deliveroo delivery rider client without authorization.
The company said Deliveroo had previously shared its concerns with Rodeo, but Rodeo continued to seek to gain unauthorized access to the data, and after a security update, Deliveroo has blocked access, but delivery riders are still free to access their work data through the client, a policy that has not changed.
Deliveroo’s delivery rider work data belongs to the delivery riders, and the delivery rider account access to the data is itself authorized by the delivery riders, said Singhis, the union’s president.
At present, Argyle, a third-party related company other than Rodeo, has not commented.
