Workers who blame algorithms for lowering their earnings are getting help from academics to find out how the system works
Gig economy workers are urging delivery platforms to open up the “black box” of computer-driven algorithms that determine the jobs they are offered and how much they are paid, blaming increased use of AI for lowering wages.
A group of food delivery riders in Edinburgh say their rates of pay have fallen and their working conditions have deteriorated at the same time as Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat, the three dominant gig economy platforms in the UK and Ireland, have increased their use of automation.
“I am making half the money I was making four years ago, for the same amount of hours. It makes no sense,” said David, a food delivery rider in Edinburgh for the past seven years who did not want to share his surname.
On a weekday afternoon in the Scottish capital, David and other food delivery riders are sharing their experiences of worsening pay and conditions before they go their separate ways to carry food and groceries to customers’ doorsteps during the dinnertime rush.
Standing next to their bikes and insulated food delivery bags in central Edinburgh’s Bristo Square, many have cycled the city streets for several years and tracked a gradual decline in the amount they are paid, even though they continue to deliver similar numbers of orders.
The group has come together through the Workers’ Observatory, a charity founded by gig economy workers alongside academics at St Andrews and Edinburgh universities. Its aim is to help riders research the parts of their working experience that are mostly concealed by the companies that operate delivery platforms, to help them to challenge their working conditions.
David’s experience is echoed by Xabier Villares, who has been riding for eight years and is now the observatory’s lead organiser. “There has been a dramatic change in the last three years,” he said. “I used to work four or five days a week, especially evenings and some lunchtimes, and was able to pay my rent and bills and make a decent living with that. But that’s not an option any more.”
The observatory, which has just gained research funding for the next decade, has previously carried out experiments to monitor the variable levels of pay offered to different workers by algorithms, a system known as “dynamic pricing” that purports to match real-time supply and demand.
Trades unions are campaigning to ban the practice, saying it leaves workers uncertain about their earnings.
The introduction of a dynamic pricing algorithm in 2023 resulted in Uber drivers earning “substantially less” an hour, according to research from the University of Oxford and New York’s Columbia business school.
This week drivers from the UK, the Netherlands and other countries launched a landmark class action against the ride-hailing app claiming they live in “constant fear” of the “soulless” algorithm it uses to set pay and allocate jobs.
The legal case lodged in Amsterdam, which could run into billions of dollars, alleges the AI-powered system breaches data protection laws and pushes down their earnings based on what each driver is willing to take. Uber denies adjusting trip prices based on an individual driver’s behaviour and has put discrepancies down to other features of its system such as GPS.
Cailean Gallagher, director of the observatory and a lecturer at St Andrews university business school, said “there is so much infrastructure of knowledge and data that’s concealed” by the platforms, leaving gig economy riders “working in the dark”.
He added: “What we are trying to do with the observatory is to get on the ground floor in terms of understanding how the whole apparatus works.”
