Home Tech ‘It’s a nightmare’: Couriers baffled by the algorithms that control their jobs

‘It’s a nightmare’: Couriers baffled by the algorithms that control their jobs

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'It's a nightmare': Couriers baffled by the algorithms that control their jobs

Most days a tangle of couriers can be seen around the McDonald’s in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, waiting for orders and discussing the mysteries of the systems that govern their working lives.

This week, freelancers, unions and human rights groups launched a campaign for greater openness from Uber Eats, Just Eat and Deliveroo about the logic behind the opaque algorithms that determine what work they do and how much they are paid.

Messengers wonder why someone who just logged in gets a job while others who wait longer are ignored. Why, when the restaurant is full and crying out for couriers, does the app say there are none available?

“We will never be able to solve the algorithm,” says one of the drivers, who requests anonymity for fear of losing his job. They wonder if the app ignores them if they’ve already done some work that hour, and they experiment by standing inside the restaurant, on the sidewalk, or in the parking lot to see if subtle changes in geolocation matter.

“It’s an absolute nightmare,” the driver says, adding that they permanently lost access to one of the platforms during a wait of “five minutes at most” to get to a restaurant while finishing another job for a different app. Sometimes he goes offline for a couple of hours because his beard has grown, which confuses facial recognition software.

“It’s nothing like being an employee,” he says. He regularly feels frustrated having to challenge what appeared to be a shortfall in pay for work: sometimes just 10p, but other times a few pounds. “There is no one you can talk to. “Everything is automated.”

App companies say they have staff to support drivers and that some information about the algorithms is available on their websites and when they initially “onboard” drivers.

But similar frustrations simmer in Lincoln, where one night at 9 p.m., Lucas Myron was delivering burgers, fried chicken and groceries when, without warning, part of his work stopped. One of the two takeout apps I was using suddenly stopped working. Without warning, half of this father’s income disappeared.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “What happened?”

It was not easy to discover it. “A human boss would try to talk to you and tell you what happened,” he said. “But (on this app) you can’t really connect with them.”

A few hours later he received an email explaining that the app company had “made the decision to revoke access” to his account because he had been prolonging his trip to the pickup point, taking longer than reasonable. It didn’t add up, but there was no easy way to find out more.

It wasn’t until weeks later, when he exercised his legal right to request the data he had about himself, that he was told something completely different: the app company believed he had tried to manipulate the system to undeservedly earn extra fees for waiting at restaurants. to pick up orders.

This had been detected by team members, the app company stated. An apparent algorithmic intervention was now described as human. But when Myron looked back at his payment records, he couldn’t see any of the fees he was accused of. It was disconcerting.

“I’m not the only driver,” he says. “Many people lose their accounts for no reason.”

In the information void left by the disembodied algorithm, he speculates: Did he get kicked out for also using a rival app? There’s no evidence that this is the case, but none of the evidence presented to him as to why it was deactivated doesn’t add up either. Then trust breaks down. Now, relying on a single app, he struggles to earn £10 an hour, less than the national legal minimum wage.

“It’s like gambling and it’s very nerve-wracking and stressful,” says James Farrar. Photograph: Peter Flude/The Guardian

James Farrar has extensive experience working on algorithm-based platforms. When he was working as a minicab driver on the Uber app, he joined forces with fellow driver Yaseen Aslam to file a legal case against Uber. It ended with a verdict from the UK Supreme Court that Uber drivers should be granted greater employment rights, including a minimum wage and holiday pay. Now an activist for precarious workers, he maintains a Deliveroo account.

On a quiet afternoon in his area of ​​Surrey, he seemed to be the only courier logged into the app, so he watched as the algorithm asked him to pick up a delivery from a BP workshop. Every six or seven minutes the app asked him again, each time quoting him a different rate: from £14.74 it went down to £12.30 and up to £16.08 in less than half an hour and continued to fluctuate, a total of 45 %. margin in the offered salary.

“All workers need to understand the basis on which they are paid,” Farrar said. “But they are tricking you into deciding whether to take a job or not. Will I receive a better offer? It’s like gambling and it’s very distressing and stressful for people.

“You’re completely in a vacuum about what is the best way to do the job, and because people often don’t understand how decisions about their work are made, that encourages conspiracies.”

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