As Ontario locked down for this pandemic, gig economy workers,
particularly food couriers, became busier than ever.
David Rockne Corrigan is our Ontario Hubs journalist
covering the eastern part of the province.
He's been looking into what it's helped reveal
about this subset of the labour force
and joins us now from Kingston.
Welcome to the show.
Hi, Jeyan.
Now, gig workers have precarious employment at the best of times.
What has life been for them during this pandemic?
Well, it's been an interesting couple of months.
One of the folks I spoke to for this story, Brice Sopher,
he's an Uber Eats food courier in Toronto.
And he said as soon as the pandemic hit,
like many people, everything was shut down.
There were deliveries to be made,
but he decided not to work.
And then as the time progressed, he got back on his bike
and he said in the early days
it was, you know, pretty surreal,
like going through a post-apocalyptic scene.
Driving on empty streets and
dropping off food at people he would rarely see
because people didn't want to, you know, make contact,
personal contact there.
And then, he's been back on his bike.
He figures he's going about four to five days a week,
as his other employment,
his other sources of income, have dried up.
It's actually become...
He's relying on it now basically to pay his rent.
But some of the changes that they've gone through,
Uber in this particular case had sent out a policy
to its workers,
including things like having to wear masks.
And in order to prove that they've worn a mask,
every day before he goes out on his bike,
he needs to take a selfie with the Uber App and send it to them
to show that he's at least starting his day with a mask.
So that's one big, one big way that things have changed
for food couriers in Ontario.
I want to talk about how COVID-19 has shed light
on some of the broader labour issues
and employment issues in the gig economy.
Sure, so, one of the folks I spoke to
was a Regional Director for the UFCW,
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union.
And they are part of a union drive for Uber drivers.
And this man, Pablo, tells me that some of the issues,
many of the issues that were there before the pandemic
are still there and they've just sort of,
become exacerbated or
highlighted because of the pandemic.
So, one of those is wages.
And you know, a lot of these drivers are on the road for,
you know, more than 40 hours a week, we'll say.
And often, you know, it'll end up being
less than minimum wage that they're paying.
So, a lot of these issues,
a lot of them, have actually just been sort of turned up
for these drivers over the last three months.
I'm curious, what are the options, you know,
for these workers, if they feel their rights are violated?
Sure, there-- I mean, there's a couple of interesting things
happening right here in Eastern Ontario.
One of which is the Ottawa Pro Bono legal clinic.
This is some Law students at the U of O,
offering legal services for people who think
that they may have an employment or labour case.
But even more interesting, is out of Queen's University,
here in Kingston, we've got the Conflict Analytics Lab
which is using troves of data in order to determine
whether somebody may have a labour law case.
So, if people wanted to go and they think that
maybe their rights are being violated or exploited
by their employer, that they could go onto this website:
myopencourt.org to see if maybe they've got a case.
And then, it will search through data, using AI,
and then will connect these folks with a lawyer,
if they've got a case.
David, always a pleasure to have you on the show.
Of course, our viewers can read your article on TVO.org
it's David Rockne Corrigan our Ontario Hub journalist
covering Eastern Ontario. Thanks again.
Thanks, Jeyan.