This should not be particularly surprising, given that the working conditions for delivery workers in most fast-food stores and restaurants are far from ideal. An interviewed delivery worker who works in a local restaurant explained, “Labour law violations occur very often. Right now, 50% ofdelivery workers are uninsured. The recent death ofa young worker, who didn’t even have a driving license, is a good example. Employers never ask for a driving license before hiring you”.
Such narratives underscore the absence of labour inspection mechanisms that are necessary to provide employment conditions of health and safety. Further, they indicate the lack of job security and the strong capacity of employers to control the labour process. As an interviewed worker mentioned: “When you report a violation to the authorities (SEPE), they arrange a meeting with a representative from the employer within 15–30 days. After reporting, you either lose your job immediately or are pressured to resign by being assigned to clean toilets and given undesirable shift schedules, such as working both morning and night shifts on the same day”. He continued by saying that: “You can’tfind justice. Ifyou approach SEPE, you end up on a blacklist, making it difficult to secure employment in the industry”.
In a similar vein, an interviewed motorbike delivery driver mentioned that employers can become extremely upset when receiving official complaints from the labour inspectors: “Some employers might hire bodyguards and bouncers. They could set up a fake order, and you may never return”. He also mentioned a recent violent incident, where: “The employer got angry with a delivery person in the area of Anoixi, hit him, and ran over his motorcycle with his jeep”.
In a similar vein, Alexandros, who has been a delivery worker for more than 20 years, highlighted the already-mentioned inability of workers to claim their rights by saying that “a Pakistani guy was beaten up asking for his salary”.
Apart from the risk of harassment and bullying behaviour from employers reported for misconduct, the courts are also not a very effective way for workers to resolve disputes. According to a delivery worker: “As a worker, it’s not feasible to pay for a lawyer and wait for two years to see what will happen in court”.
It should be noted that most of these workplaces are not unionized because Greek law requires a minimum of 21 members to establish a union, a threshold that is challenging to meet given that 99% of such workplaces have fewer employees. As a rank-and-file activist mentioned: “We have established Worker Committees because the environment is very hostile to unionism. The Committee functions like a trade union, but it is better to have it because it is anonymized. Ifyou plan to engage in formal unionism when most workers are undocumented and unregistered, there is no chance. For example, if you have people from Bulgaria or Georgia working in a pizzeria or grill house under very oppressive conditions, a trade unionist can not survive. He would be laid offthe next day”.
2 MIGRANT LABOUR IN THE GREEK GIG ECONOMY
43