"Delivery Apps as Modern-Day Slavery"... Controversy Grows, Leading to Criminal Complaint

French Civic Groups File Complaint Against Uber Eats and Deliveroo
Delivery Workers Average 63 Hours a Week, Earn Below Minimum Income
98% of Delivery Workers Are Foreigners, Many Undocumented

Amid ongoing controversies over the exploitation of delivery workers in France, a criminal complaint has been filed against major delivery platforms.

According to AFP on April 23 (local time), the previous day, four organizations supporting delivery workers submitted a complaint to the Paris Prosecutor’s Office, accusing the American company Uber Eats and the British company Deliveroo of "human trafficking." The lawyer representing these organizations argued, "The current platform business model exploits a vulnerable labor force—mainly immigrants—by providing only minimum subsistence wages under inhumane working conditions." He told the daily Le Parisien, "There is no precedent for a criminal complaint of this kind," and added, "To my knowledge, there has never been a case where these platforms have been prosecuted on the grounds that their actions constitute a form of modern-day slavery."

A criminal complaint has been filed against a major delivery platform amid controversies over the exploitation of delivery workers in France. Photo by Getty Images

Currently, it is estimated that about 70,000 to 100,000 delivery workers are active in France. According to a survey conducted last year by the France-based organization Doctors of the World and several research institutions, 98% of the 1,000 delivery workers surveyed were foreign nationals, and among them, 64% were undocumented immigrants without residency permits.

In April 2023, delivery platforms including Deliveroo signed an agreement guaranteeing a minimum hourly income for delivery workers. At the time, the pre-tax minimum was set at 11.75 euros (about 20,000 won), and Uber Eats later raised this to 14 euros (24,000 won). However, waiting time is not included in the working hours. Delivery workers work an average of 63 hours per week and earn about 1,480 euros (about 2.56 million won) per month. This translates to a pre-tax hourly income of less than 6 euros (10,000 won). The minimum pre-tax hourly wage in France this year is 12.02 euros.

Delivery platform names, including Uber Eats, are displayed on the McDonald's sign in Los Angeles, USA. Photo by AP Yonhap News

A representative from one of the civic groups involved in the complaint criticized, "These platforms may appear modern on the surface, but in reality, they recreate 19th-century contract labor, effectively establishing a kind of servant society." Another representative from a complainant group added, "Some delivery workers spend time refusing low-paying orders, but due to fears of being blacklisted, they have no other choice but to accept the work." He also cited a case where a delivery worker delivered cookies to a location 10 kilometers away to earn just 3.86 euros (6,600 won). The lawyer for the complainants stated that if there is no satisfactory response from the two companies regarding the improvement of working conditions for delivery workers, they plan to file a class-action lawsuit within 30 days.

In response, Uber Eats said, "This complaint is baseless." Deliveroo also stated, "It is completely unacceptable to equate our business model with exploitation or human trafficking."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.