Work by application should be regulated, say 87% of São Paulo residents

Almost 9 in 10 residents of the city of São Paulo are in favor of regulating transport and delivery apps to protect delivery people and drivers, points out a survey by the Locomotiva institute for the Fairwork project, at Oxford University, released this Sunday (1st).

Companies such as Uber, iFood, Rappi and 99 do not remunerate these workers fairly, according to 64% of São Paulo residents interviewed by the institute. Seven out of ten said they would stop using delivery and transportation apps that do not guarantee good wages and working conditions for employees.

The regulation of delivery and driver activities is on the agenda of this year’s electoral debate, in the federal government’s plans and even among the goals of the apps themselves.

This work mediated by platforms gained visibility in March 2020, when several countries decreed confinements to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

With commerce and businesses closed, deliveries were, on the one hand, a way out for those who lost their jobs and income and, on the other hand, the solution for those who were able to comply with social distancing orders at home.

The approximation of users with workers appeared during the “Breque dos Apps” movement, a national strike that brought together mainly delivery people and asked for support during the pandemic and better working conditions.

The subject was among the most commented on the social network Twitter at the time; Earlier this month, 82% of São Paulo residents considered the stoppages to be fair in the survey carried out for Fairwork —​a global research project coordinated by the Oxford University, Oxford Internet Institute and the WZB Berlin Social Science Center.

Under pressure from public opinion, the main platforms were driven to seek solutions. From the 2020 protest until this 1st of May, accident insurance, adjustments in minimum values ​​per race and promises of more transparency were some of the measures adopted.

Of the largest, at least three –99, iFood and Uber– lead articulations for legislation that includes professionals in the INSS, but outside the CLT (Consolidation of Labor Laws).

The traditional formalization, with a formal contract, is not a consensus among couriers.

Amabr (Association of Applications and Self-Employed Motofretistas of Brazil), for example, advocates the creation of a new protection model through which couriers are able to maintain autonomy to choose their working hours and days.

The entity demands, however, that there is a clear rule for the operation of logistics operators (OLs), companies that provide delivery men for the platforms.

The flexibility to set your own hours, says delivery person Juliana Iemanjara Janaina do Nascimento dos Santos, 34, is the good side of the apps.

The OLs, not so much – after working through a company like, “as if it were a [funcionário] fixed”, she ended up blocked from the iFood app when she tried to be autonomous (or cloud, as professionals connected to the platform without intermediation are called).

To ensure the family’s income, the delivery woman works through four apps –”sometimes you travel eight kilometers to earn R$5″-, works odd jobs in bars and restaurants and even produces cakes and sweets with her mother.

On the street, there is no place to eat, to heat up a meal, to rest and even to charge a cell phone – the most important work tool after the motorcycle.

“The guy who makes R$5,000 a month on the app has no life, no family. For men, it’s easier. For women who go out on the street, who do they leave their children with?”

She is part of the Antifascist Deliverers group, which gained projection in the 2020 break and defends the formalization of workers who serve via app.

In São Paulo, although more than half (54%) of the respondents to Fairwork assess that companies treat couriers and drivers fairly, 93% say that conditions should improve.

For the coordinator of Fairwork Brazil, Rafael Grohmann, the perception of São Paulo residents about the activity of couriers signals, for companies in the sector, the need to adopt “actions to actively improve conditions for their workers.”

For Mark Graham, professor at the Oxford Internet Institute and director of the Fairwork project, the platforms’ commercial strategy is at risk if they ignore that consumers are also affected by the perception of how these professionals work.

iFood and 99 say that, in dialogue with Fairwork, they have sought to improve their practices in favor of decent and fair work. Amobitec (an association that includes iFood, Uber and 99), claims to be attentive to the demands of workers and to work in the search for improvements for the market for delivery and passenger mobility applications in Brazil.

ABO2O (which represents companies such as Loggi and Rappi) says that consumers are as fundamental to the digital ecosystem as service providers and that the dialogue about the relationship between professionals and applications must consider the differences between them.