TOMORROW’S ECONOMY

Food delivery apps, and the wider gig economy, rely on labour that can be switched on and off like a tap. But the atomised couriers are now combining—and demanding a fairer deal

JEM BARTHOLOMEW

Get off your bike! Striking Deliveroo drivers in the City this spring

© GUY SMALLMAN/GETTY IMAGES

On the cold morning of 7th April, Ian Morrison slipped on his fluorescent green Deliveroo jacket, fastened the laces of his Nike trainers, and pulled a snood over his head. Then Morrison, a courier from south London, ended his usual routine with a new ritual: he ripped off a strip of black masking tape and stuck it over his heart, obscuring Deliveroo’s logo—an angular kangaroo head known within the company as the “Roo mark”—on the jacket.

Morrison wasn’t working today. He was driving north of the river to demonstrate with scores of other striking riders against the company’s employment practices. The strike was planned by the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) to coincide with Deliveroo’s shares opening for public trading. His blacked out badge signalled couriers were angry. “We’re working for you,” Morrison said, “but what are you doing for us?”

As riders gathered to demonstrate outside the City offices of Deliveroo, the London Stock Exchange and Goldman Sachs (which had helped list the company), a chorus of honking scooter horns echoed around the empty streets of London’s still largely locked-down financial district. “Good turnout, innit?” Alex Marshall, IWGB president, said to a colleague. As Marshall cycled, he sparked a flare, enclosing the riders in a shroud of red mist. Photographers jostled for the best picture. There were chants of “Shame on Roo” and “Shame on Shu,” referring to the co-founder and chief executive of the company, Will Shu. Some demonstrators wore masks of Shu’s face, alongside signs reading: “You’re Taking Us For A Ride.”

Shu, a former Morgan Stanley analyst, set up Deliveroo from his Chelsea flat in 2013—along with developer Greg Orlowski—based on a compelling idea: deliver good food fast. A year later, Shu attracted venture capital to expand to Brighton, Paris and Berlin. Around this time, politicians like the chancellor George Osborne were positioning Britain as a global “gig economy” leader, or, as they sometimes called it then, the “online sharing economy.” In cities like London, Deliveroo became a household name. By 2021 the company valued itself at around £8bn, and was shooting for the largest UK initial public offering in a decade. The eight-year-old company, with few physical assets, was sold as being more valuable than Sainsbury’s and having more than double the market capitalisation of Marks & Spencer.

But by the day of the strike, the shine was wearing off. In the immediate run-up to the float, around £1bn had been shaved off the valuation range—with much worse to come.

Deliveroo’s IPO saw its shares drop by as much as 31 per cent, with the Financial Times reporting that the float was perhaps “the worst in the history of the London market.”

So what went wrong? Well, Deliveroo has never made a profit—even after the pandemic boosted its revenues by making it the gatekeeper for restaurant food. However investors are very patient with tech startups, and the company continues to grow apace: between January and December 2021, it will have expanded to 100 new UK towns and cities. Then there is Shu’s decision to list on a dual-class share structure—allowing him to raise cash but retain control. Although far from unheard of in tech, that blocked some funds from investing. Perhaps the most damaging problem of all, however, are concerns about the rights of the company’s workers: its relationship to the people, like Morrison, who actually do the driving.

Contested territory

Not long ago, the gig economy felt like the future, with every industry primed for tech-enabled “disruption” as inevitably as a train barrelling towards its destination. Empty flats, underused cars, flexible workers and more were to be matched via app-based platforms with whoever demanded them most. For evangelists like Wingham Rowan, the social entrepreneur behind nonprofit Modern Markets for All, gig efficiencies promised to be empowering for everybody—from lone parents who wanted to work odd hours, to cafés that needed hired hand at short notice. And many consumers enjoyed the new flexibility. Calling an Uber through a smartphone soon felt as natural as hailing a cab.