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Press Release: LONDON’S PUSHBIKE COURIERS LAUNCH CAMPAIGN FOR THE LONDON LIVING WAGE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
11 May, 2015, London. Pushbike couriers employed by City Sprint have this week begun a campaign to win the London Living Wage of £9.15 per hour.
City Sprint, a same-day dispatch company which has its pushbike couriers deliver packages for the likes of the Guardian and Goldman Sachs pays its workers as little as £1.25 for some deliveries. These low rates- which haven’t risen in years-, combined with a multitude of fees and fluctuations in available work result in many pushbike couriers earning around or just above the minimum wage. This is well below the London Living Wage of £9.15 per hour, a wage that a growing consensus of Londoners from a variety of political backgrounds recognises as the absolute minimum needed to satisfy basic needs in the capital. “London is one of the most expensive cities in the world, and we haven’t seen a pay rise in twenty years. Most of us work nine or ten hour days on average. Sometimes I come out with less than minimum wage equivalent pay for that amount of time,” said a pushbike courier who preferred to remain anonymous for fear of victimization.
In December, 2014 a group of pushbike couriers decided enough was enough and joined the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), founding the Couriers and Logistics Branch. Inspired by a series of high profile successful campaigns for improved wages and/or terms and conditions- such as at Royal Opera House and University of London- the couriers decided it was time to take the IWGB’s approach of aggressive social media publicity and direct action to the courier industry. IWGB President Dr. Jason Moyer-Lee said: “We’ve taken on bigger companies than City Sprint before and have won. We have a serious plan of social media publicity, videos, protests, and other forms of direct action. The question is not if but when City Sprint will pay its workers the London Living Wage.”
City Sprint is a leading trendsetter for the worker exploitation rampant across the unregulated courier industry. When City Sprint agrees to implement the London Living Wage it will have major effects on the rest of the industry. City Sprint could have avoided the current campaign by responding to multiple IWGB requests for dialogue and negotiation over the past month.
For more information, see: https://iwgbclb.wordpress.com/
Contact: clb@iwgb.org.uk.
To follow the latest developments see: Facebook: Couriers and Logistics Branch; Twitter: #CouriersLivingWage
IWGB Couriers and Logistics Branch 
There are three legal tests to ascertain whether you are an employee or a contractor. An employee is in the service of a company whereas a contractor provides ‘services’ to a company. This debate between service and services has raged in British courts for over a century and thus these tests have evolved.
Test 1. The Recognition Test
Let us say you walk into McDonalds and meet someone dressed in a McDonalds uniform. You would be quite reasonable in assuming that you were dealing with a McDonalds’ employee. Someone who represented their company. Someone for whose actions McDonalds will be liable and you would be right in that assumption. Even if McDonalds didn’t employ that person they would still be liable for them because they have made them recongisable. If your job requires that you wear livery or a uniform then you are recognised as an employee of that company. You work for them. In practice it might be however that your company denies any responsibility for you actions at all for any reason.
Test 2. The Control Test
Let us say two electricians arrive at a building site and report to the Clerk of Works for jobs. One is an employee and the other is a contractor. The Clerk of Works will present the contractor with a list of works and agree a price and thus a contract is formed by offer and acceptance. He cannot or does not control how the contractor does his work. With the employee me might give him a list of works and specify in what orders he wants them done and tell him to come back for more when he has completed them. Thus he is controlled by the company. If you have anyone called a controller or you are controlled in the manner and order of the work you do then you are employed you are not a contractor.
Test 3. The Taxation or Exclusion Test
This works in two opposite ways but has the same effect. Let us assume you as a courier pay your taxes as a self employed rider. After two years declarations the tax inspector says to you ‘but where are your other contracts?’ ‘I have none’ you reply ‘I only ride for Speedydrop.’ ‘Well then you work for Speedydrop’ says the tax inspector but you know that if you dare to tell Speedydrop that the tax office has said you are an employee you will receive no more work from them and be dropped instantly regardless of time providing ‘services’ for them.
Conversely let us examine this issue from a slightly different angle. Let us say you are riding along and your radio goes off. Your Speedydrop controller wants you to pick up in WC1 and go to EC2 but you decline. You tell him you are now wearing two radios. You have decided to maximise your earnings by accepting other jobs from ProntoRide and you have already agreed to carry other goods to W1. You would be dropped instantly. They will tell you that they require your ‘exclusive’ and undivided attention for at least ten hours without guaranteeing you a penny in earnings. If your company requires any kind of exclusivity you are an employee you are not a contractor.
Now let’s apply this the circumstances of CS riders who wear livery, have controllers and work exclusively for CS for shifts the equivalent of six statutory working days and I think we all see where this would go in court. I urge you to take legal remedies. This is how you disarm the Death Star
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