Deliveroo encouraged restaurants to call the police on its riders’ strikes for fair pay and working conditions, openDemocracy has learnt.

Hours before a strike in London on 2 February, Deliveroo emailed its partner restaurants urging them to call the police and “request they clear individuals from the location” if they felt “under threat” from the riders or saw them “loitering” or engaging in “anti-social behaviour”.

Those behind the action were astonished by the firm’s message. Alex Marshall, the president of the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) – which has been supporting the strikers – told openDemocracy that it amounted to “deliberately inflammatory” language against a group who were already often victimised.

“With a lot of delivery workers, because they’re predominantly migrant, there’s a really racist language that’s used towards them by members of the public,” he said.

“Whenever you go on social media you’ll see people calling them a nuisance, saying that half of them are illegal and that they probably don’t have documents – there’s a very toxic sentiment directed towards them.”

Drivers and riders for food delivery apps in the UK are considered self-employed contractors, meaning they are not legally entitled to the national living wage of £10.42 an hour (which will rise to £11.44 from April). They also don’t have automatic rights to sick pay, holiday pay, pensions or parental leave.

Gig economy workers face the same problems in much of the world, and similar industrial action has taken place in countries including the US, Canada, Brazil, Ireland, Georgia, France, Italy, Australia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Ecuador in recent years.

Although there was no notable police presence at the 2 February action in London, Deliveroo riders held a second strike on Valentine’s Day, which Marshall said met “an unpleasant end” when it was ambushed by around 15 officers and four police vans.

Some 100 riders and their supporters had cycled from their picket line in Notting Hill in the west of the capital to a so-called ‘dark kitchen’ – a delivery-only restaurant – at an industrial estate in Battersea, south London, where they planned to continue their strike, he said.

The strikers and the police disagree on what happened next.

Marshall said the day had been “amazing” and turned “menacing” only when police arrived. Officers, he claimed, told the strikers there was a dispersal order in place and that they would be “happy” if they had to arrest people in order to enforce it.

Dispersal orders allow officers to break up groups they believe to be causing a nuisance, harassment or distress, but the law says they cannot be used on workers engaged in “peaceful picketing”.

It meant workers were forced to abandon the strike earlier than planned, said Marshall.

But the Metropolitan Police, questioned by openDemocracy, denied any such order had been put in place, or that officers had done anything to stop the group striking.

What’s more, Scotland Yard said one person had been arrested and charged with possession of an offensive weapon, a baseball bat and a knuckle duster. But both Marshall and a spokesperson for Delivery Job UK, the grassroots group that organised the strike, said no one in their group was arrested, adding they did not recognise the name of the man identified by police.

The Met’s spokesperson said: “Officers were in the area following intelligence to suggest protesters were planning to cause criminal damage to a building. One person was arrested following a report of anti-social behaviour. The group was not prevented from striking.”

Ulisses Cioffi, a Brazilian food delivery rider who is a co-organiser at Delivery Job UK, said workers had been “really upset” by the police presence at the strike “because they felt like their freedom to strike was taken away by intimidation”.

“As long as it’s a peaceful protest we don’t see why we cannot just stay in front of the business and shame them,” he said. “The police were just trying to push us away from the establishment so people wouldn’t see us.”

Marshall described it as “a little weird” that the officers knew the workers would head to Battersea, saying: “We’d been going all around London. I have no idea how they knew that we were going to be ending up there.”

He blamed Deliveroo for the police presence, owing to the company’s email of two weeks earlier. A spokesperson for Deliveroo said the company “rejects these baseless claims”.

‘At breaking point’

Up to 3,000 workers for food delivery apps have taken part in industrial action across the UK in recent weeks to demand a minimum of £5 an order.

Deliveroo had paid its riders a fixed rate of £4 a delivery until 2018, when it introduced a variable rate, meaning their fees are now dependent on factors such as time and distance. Riders say they receive a minimum of £3.15 for each delivery.

Cioffi told openDemocracy the decrease has had a drastic impact on riders’ livelihoods and wellbeing.

He said: “We need to work more now. We just feel like we’re going backwards – while everyone else is pushing for a four-day work week, we are the ones doing six days or seven days. The people who were working eight hours are now doing ten hours.

“I’ve got experienced drivers in my area who used to make £140 to £150 in eight hours, but now they’re making £105. And this is affecting their lives outside of work as well – some of them are parents or are married.

“This is also affecting many people’s mental health as well. People are eating on their mopeds because they just can’t stop.”

Matthew Touw, who runs a bicycle shop in Reading and rides for food delivery platforms to supplement his income, said “the fees are just getting worse year-on-year”, adding that continuous strike action is “the only way that we can bring effective change”.

“I would love to see someone from the head office from Deliveroo… get on a normal bike… and try and hit a living wage because they wouldn't be able to do it,” Touw told openDemocracy.

Marshall of the IGWB echoed their concerns, saying: “People are out there at breaking point. But instead of actually listening to these workers, Deliveroo is trying to get people to call the cops on them to try and scare them off.”

Alongside pay and fairer working conditions, drivers are also demanding more support from platforms to deal with abuse from customers.

Touw told openDemocracy he was once punched in the head by a customer. Like many riders, he works across several delivery apps and can’t recall which he was working for at the time, though he remembers that he didn’t receive any support.

Cioffi said he has heard of drivers having stones and eggs thrown at them by customers, or having their mopeds stolen and having to “be [their] own police” because of a lack of help from cops.

“We just want to continue doing the job as best as we can but not be taken advantage of and used and abused.”

Deliveroo says it will enter collective bargaining with riders on pay in April and that it offers riders “free insurance, sickness cover, financial support when riders become new parents, and a range of training opportunities”.

The platform aims to provide workers with “flexible work… attractive earning opportunities and protections”, it said, while “rider retention rates are high and the overwhelming majority of riders tell us that they are satisfied”.