Italy: Milan court places Uber Italy Srl under judicial administration due to the working conditions of Uber Eats delivery riders

On 30 May the ‘preventive measures’ section of the Milan court appointed a judicial administrator to manage Uber Italy Srl for the period of one year, holding that the delivery riders were being subjected to ‘caporalato’ conditions; a criminal offence consisting of excessive recourse to labor (directly or through an intermediary) to exploit it, and take advantage of workers’ weak positions to impose abusive working and remuneration conditions. A lengthy investigation was carried out in particular to determine the relationship between Uber’s Italian subsidiary and the Milanese intermediary Flash Road City. The investigation established that many riders were asylum seekers or migrants from war zones, often housed in reception centers, and ‘ready to do anything to get money to survive,’ according to the Milanese judges. The situation appears to have worsened during the pandemic, which led to an upsurge in home deliveries. Workers were required to continuously accept deliveries from 11am to midnight for a gross payment of €3 per delivery, or had specific time slots imposed on them, the intermediary withheld tips and workers suffered financial penalties if they refused to accept all the delivery orders… the testimonies are chilling. The Flash Road City company is also accused of the illicit intermediation and exploitation of labor, while the judges believe that Uber had participated by way of penalizing workers and conditioning their work schedules. The central Cgil trade union announced its intention to become a civil party in the lawsuit, in order to better understand exploitation mechanisms, “We know indirect labor relations exist between workers and the platform”, explains Massimo Bonini, secretary general of the Camera del Lavoro of Milan (Cgil), who underlines the role of intermediaries that take a percentage of workers’ meager remuneration and decide on the nature of economic penalties. This investigation also extends to Uber Eats’ Dutch-based holding company, Uber International Holding.