E5: A Normal Working Day

Previous episodes of this podcast have covered the worker-led campaigns to establish works councils or Betriebsrats at Gorillas, Getir, Flink, and Lieferando. For the "rider" activists, the Betriebsverfassungsgesetz was a device that could stabilise their lives. With the establishment of a Betriebsrat (works council), they hoped to get paid for their activism and for helping other workers and also be protected against retaliatory firings. 

 

This episode contrasts that pursuit of stability with the notion of "flexibility" which, platform companies have argued, is beneficial for platform workers. The companies argue that they provide workers with the ability to work where they want and how they want. Indeed, for migrants into Germany, like Lieferando courier Mohammed Arif Khan, delivery work for platforms like Liferando is a convenient point of entry into the German job market. 

 

On the other, what is being seen by the platform companies as flexibility has been seen by platform workers as a lack of predictability. When platform companies talk about flexibility, they highlight a worker’s control over working time but not how reducing labour costs during periods of low demand has been a route to profitability. In spite of him holding a "permanent" job contract, Lieferando terminated Mohammed Arif Khan's employment. 

 

As we dive into the experience of worker complaints about shift planning, we also learn that perhaps working time is not actually flexible. To what extent for example, is the fact that one is a parent with childcare responsibilities, considered by a global algorithm in determining how working time is distributed among workers?

 

Rob and Mo campaigned in 2022 to establish Betriebsrats at Flink and Lieferando respectively but achieved different results. Flink continues to resist the establishment of a Works Council through quite "extraordinary" interpretations of the German labour law on employment protection for workers who participate in the process of establishing a Works Council. Mo and his colleagues, on the other hand, quite successfully established a Works Council through elections. This body was able to help Mohammed Arif Khan retain his employment at Lieferando and open negotiations with the company about the knotty issues of shift planning.