‘More than a job’: the meal delivery co-ops making the gig economy fairer

Across Europe, worker-led delivery collectives are springing up to reclaim control from corporate platforms

Cristina Gonzalez did a lot of waiting in 2018. Back then, the 29-year-old was a courier for the Spanish food delivery platform Glovo in her Basque home town, Vitoria-Gasteiz. She talks about feeling as if she was on standby the whole time: You're effectively having to be working constantly."

While Glovo serves restaurants, customers can also order from supermarkets. This, Gonzalez says, was a complete shitshow: supermarket orders are really easy to screw up". If the supermarket did not have an item in stock and Gonzalez completed the order, she might get a poor rating from the customer because of the missing item. If she turned down the order, Gonzalez worried that it might affect her score on the platform. It was very, very stressful."