Riders as guinea pigs of turboliberalism: 5 cents tip to risk their skin in the infernal heat
The Glovo Case
5 cents to pedal in the heat: Glovo's idea is the new frontier of a wild capitalism that has lost all scruples
Yesterday, the news circulated that Glovo, the Spanish home food delivery company, would have recognized riders a “hot bonus” of between 5 and 20 cents for each delivery under the blazing sun. Today, fortunately, this measure has been withdrawn. At this point, it is worth making a few brief considerations: the union struggles of the 60s and 70s in which the concept that “ health is not for sale” was affirmed are certainly no longer in fashion.
In the case of Glovo we could correct it to " health is not given away". But what is dramatically striking is the level of devaluation of work that we have reached. When I heard the news of the 5/20 cents I thought it was the usual "hoax" that social media has unfortunately accustomed us to. It wasn't like that: some executive in a tie and with his brain cooled by air conditioning had actually come up with the idea. To the poor riders, guided in their pedaling by the algorithm, to whom we would also expect to recognize the status of "self-employed worker " and not employee, we recognize a slave's tip to sell off their health, instead of deciding that in the hottest hours that work cannot be done! And because of the heat, as we have seen, you can even die at work and it is no coincidence that the Government and social partners have established the possibility of using the Cassa Integrazione when the temperature exceeds 35 degrees. We know that capitalism can be declined in many ways: from the Rhineland to the Anglo-Saxon.
What the Glovo episode confirms is that a model of unbridled liberalism has prevailed, insensitive to the centrality and needs of human resources, whose destiny of inclusion and necessary improvement of conditions, also for the purposes of growth in the quality and productivity of the company, is consigned only to the debate in conferences and to a few virtuous business cases. A form of aggressive capitalism that has now lasted, globally, for more than 40 years. Since the beginning of the 80s, when the concept of "flexibility" won, not that of the production cycle open to the fickleness of the markets, but that of the flexibility of employment relationships: fixed-term, on-call, occasional, seasonal, part-time (imposed), in some cases paid even less than permanent work. Everything is done to save. In Italy, today, employment is increasing but, not surprisingly, the number of poor workers is also increasing. In the age of digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, rethinking dignified, protected and well-paid human work should become a priority again, especially for the left. The case of Glovo reminds us of this.
l'Unità
