Andrea, student and rider: “A thousand euros a month for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Who can do anything else”

ROME – “Now that I have started the Master’s degree, I rarely work like rider. I prefer to concentrate on the University and, if anything, do other odd jobs: even if they pay me as a collaborator, they give me full contracts and treat me like a person.” Andrea Pratovecchi he is 23 years old, studies Economics and Development and lives in Florence with other students, in a rented room.

How long have you worked as a rider?
“For at least two years, with different platforms.”

What does it say about the directive on which the Council and Parliament have just reached agreement?
“It seems like a fundamental step to me: the theme is that platform work is expanding and will expand more and more. Riders are only the most visible workers, but there are many others, even psychologists, lawyers, teachers who give tutoring online… I’m not an expert, but since I started I’ve seen this phenomenon explode before my eyes, and therefore the law is fundamental because if the labor market is going in that direction, it must be regulated. Piece work is not permitted by law in Italy, but in fact the riders are paid by the piece, they have no type of protection and the companies escape any type of control because they have their registered offices somewhere else in Europe. A good excuse for not applying the law, and often not even decency, in working relationships. The union at a territorial level does a lot, but since the platforms act and organize themselves at a European and global level, it is essential that a law of at least European relevance regulates their functioning.”
In Italy, however, there are also those who contest the obligation of platforms to hire workers. And there is also a union, the Ugl, which has stipulated a collective labor agreement in which riders are considered autonomous.
“At the beginning, when the platforms arrived, you earned good money: even if you had no rights, many people, including many of my friends and colleagues, saw it as a healthy job. I too said to myself ‘after all, I have nothing to do on Saturdays, I’ll make 20, 30 euros in an afternoon’. And even those who worked full time earned a good amount of money, and therefore considered it an honest working relationship. We told ourselves that it was okay, that it wasn’t worth changing anything. Now, even though I don’t work much as a rider, I continue to frequent the union, Nidil Cgil, I hear stories of people who work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week and who at the end of the month earn a maximum of 1,000, 1,200 euros gross. The platforms play their game: at the beginning they pay you a lot to entice you, then since the workers are not hired, and therefore there is no cost for them, having 5 or 1,000 is the same thing, they put many in competition and lower the rates. In my city they have come to pay 2.50 euros for deliveries within six kilometres, which means you have to cycle 45 minutes between the restaurant, the customer’s home and back to the restaurant.”

So you’ve decided to let it go now?
“Yes. Everyone I know has had second thoughts and gone on to do something else. After all, students are not so blackmailable, they are not in such bad conditions that they are forced to risk getting killed for 3 euros an hour. Only migrants are for the moment, but how long will it take until, with the continuous deterioration of economic conditions, more and more people are unable to say no to even the worst working conditions?”.