ITwo rows of dingy, filthy caravans straddle a motorway road that snakes its way into the heart of Bristol. Rats scurry between water-filled concrete gates and mounds of vegetation filled with rubbish. Drug addicts stumble out of the nearby underpass as lorries roar overhead.
This is the grim camp where around 30 Brazilian delivery drivers working for big companies like Deliveroo and Uber Eats are forced to live to make ends meet.
Celia Campos, 45, has been living for a year in a caravan next to the floodgates. “We left Brazil in search of something better,” she says in Portuguese. “But most of us cannot make those dreams come true. We come back in worse conditions than when we left.”
It has become much harder for delivery drivers to make a living from food deliveries as they say their earnings have not kept pace with rising prices.
While the national minimum wage is £11.44 per hour, food delivery companies like Deliveroo and Uber Eats don’t formally employ their drivers. Instead, they are gig economy workers, who are paid for each individual delivery. That means workers can end up earning much less than the minimum wage.
Campos works long hours for both companies and in July he says he worked 333 hours, earning the equivalent of £6.27 an hour. His pay records show he received as little as £1.20 for some Uber Eats deliveries. “We spend as much time on the road as we can. I work from 8am until I get tired – usually midnight,” he says. “Delivery work is no longer good. You have to be a slave to earn enough.”
It cannot afford the spiralling rents in Bristol, which have risen faster than anywhere else in the country and in turn caused the number of car-dwellers to rise in the west country city.
The harsh living conditions, long working hours and low wages lead to mental health problems in the camp. “I was depressed for a year. It was horrible,” says Campos. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. If you work, work, work and have no life… that’s where depression comes from.”
Deliveroo, which recently fought off a seven-year legal challenge to secure more rights for gig economy couriers, posted its first profit this month, reporting net profits of £1.3m for the first half of 2024.
Uber, which offers taxis and food deliveries, saw its UK pre-tax profits rise from £5m in 2021 to £32m in 2022, with the UK delivery side of the business generating £700m in revenue.
The Labour government has promised a new employment rights bill that will ban zero-hours contracts and allow sick pay from day one. But a plan to introduce a single status for all employees, which would give gig economy workers the same rights as employed staff, has been replaced by a promise to consult on a simpler employment framework.
Some Labour MPs have raised concerns about the links between the party and Deliveroo, as the company has sponsored a number of Labour events. Deliveroo chief executive Will Shu was invited to a party hosted by Keir Starmer last month. Shu appears in a video recorded at the event and shared on Prime Minister X’s official account.
Another of the three women living in the caravans is preparing to work for Uber Eats. Lorena, 28, has been living in a caravan for a year and a half. She says she earns £600 a week working 12 hours a day, which equates to £7.14 an hour. “When I first came here, it wasn’t that bad, but now it’s become dehumanising,” she says.
Riders look out for each other, saying they get little support from the platforms they log on to every day. They protect each other’s bikes, fix each other’s flats and raise money for injured or sick workers. One compares the sidewalk community to a union, another to a slum – a poor working-class neighborhood in Brazil.
Some still feel vulnerable to street violence. Lorena is afraid that anti-immigrant protesters will burn down their houses. “We feel threatened,” she says.
His neighbour Lucas, 25, is resting in his ramshackle caravan. The window seals are covered with black tape and the back is covered with a tarp. His double bed takes up most of the living space, which measures just five by two metres.
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Black mould covers the walls above his small camping stove, which is dangerous when used in enclosed spaces. “There is no comfort here (in the caravan). There is a bed to sleep in and that’s it… Sometimes I get discouraged,” he says.
Across the road, another rider prepares to set off on his moped. Freitas, 32, is a qualified pharmacist in Brazil but delivers food to people in the UK. Figures on his Uber Eats app show he was paid an average of £3.43 per delivery. “I studied for five years. I wouldn’t want to tell my family what’s going on here,” he says.
He is desperate to move because his caravan has no electricity, no heating and nowhere to cook. The windows leak onto his bed when it rains. “It’s a struggle to live like this. You have to wrap yourself in a blanket at night,” he explains. “A lot of the people who stay here end up having mental problems because they live in a small cube.”
Heather Mack, deputy leader of Bristol City Council, said: “Most of us treat others the way we would like to be treated, but sadly this is not what we see from companies like Deliveroo and Uber Eats in our city. People who work for a living should be earning a living that allows them to have the basics we all need – safety, hygiene and food.”
Mack also called on the administration to end the “cruel and hostile environment” policy to give immigrants a path to legal work.
The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), which led the failed legal campaign to secure workers’ rights, said the Bristol camp was “emblematic of the mass misery produced by the gig economy”. Maritza Castillo Calle, vice-president of the IWGB, accused delivery companies of cutting workers’ pay to boost their profits. “We should not be wrong in saying that Deliveroo recorded its first profit last week as a direct result of its workers facing further hardship,” she said.
Deliveroo said it was “very concerned” about the poor working conditions for its drivers and would be contacting Bristol City Council. A spokesperson added: “Deliveroo offers the flexible working drivers tell us they want, attractive earning opportunities and protections including free insurance, sickness cover, financial support when drivers become new parents and a range of training opportunities.”
Uber said Uber Eats offered a flexible way for thousands of couriers to earn money: “Couriers can access a range of protections, including travel insurance, when they work with us, and we regularly engage with them to see how we can improve their experience.”
Back in Bristol, Campos hops on her scooter. She is exhausted from the long hours she worked the night before, but says she needs to get back to work. “You have to make a lot of deliveries if you are paid one, two or three pounds for each delivery… the owners of these companies don’t think about us, the delivery people, who make them money; they only think about themselves.”
