How food couriers fell into the trap of their employers
A recruitment agency engaged food couriers with an attractive work contract, only for them to sign a second contract with much less favorable conditions when they arrived in Malta.
And when the workers resigned because they could not take more, the company informed them that they had to pay €4,000 for giving up.
Times of Malta she saw documentation showing that former food couriers who were employed with one of Malta’s largest agencies, RecruitGiant, were forced to sign an employment contract in their country and then forced to sign a second different contract after arriving in Malta.
At least a dozen former couriers said Times of Malta they had already spent over €8,000 each in fees, contract and visa processing, flights, insurances and medical tests to be able to settle in Malta, they signed their future on a very promising contract they signed in their home country .
After signing the second contract, believing it to be identical to the first one, they quickly realized that the working conditions were not at all as promised.
After two or three months, the situation became so dire that they decided to resign, prompting RecruitGiant’s lawyers to pursue them for an additional €4,000 for ‘breach of contract’.
It was then that they discovered that the second contract they were made to sign was what they called a legal trap.
What the contracts said
The first contract promised employment on an indefinite basis with a six-month probation, a gross monthly salary of €1,000+ and up to 40 hours of work over a five-day week.
When they saw these conditions, the young people decided that it was worth their lives in India or Nepal and take the risk of relocating to Malta to earn a decent living and be able to send financial aid to their families back home .
It was with that contract that they went to the Identity Malta offices when they landed in Malta to obtain a work permit. But when they presented the permit to their employer, they were asked to sign a second contract.
“We were told that the new contract contained the same conditions as the old one and they all signed it,” said a former courier.
“There was a sense of urgency to sign the second contract,” said another ex-courier. “We were told to sign it quickly because someone in the administration needed it as soon as possible.”
The second contract was, in fact, very different from the first one.
Most significantly, it was not an indefinite contract. It was a definite one year contract with only one month of probation. And she asked for a minimum of 40 hours a week with a gross annual salary of almost €10,000.
While the salary in the first contract was based on 40 hours of work according to Maltese law, the second stipulated that ‘working hours’ is limited to the hours during which the courier drives from his current location to the restaurant, until the moment an order is delivered to the customer. The courier would not be paid for the idle time they spent waiting outside the restaurants between deliveries.
The couriers signed the contract, not realizing that they were, in fact, agreeing to very different terms and conditions. But even if they had read the modified contract and protested against the new conditions, there was very little they could do, because Identity Malta issues work permits that bind the citizens of third countries to work for the agency that recruited them. They could not just leave, because without a job they would not have permission to stay in the country.
In addition, they had already spent more than €8,000 to come to Malta and could not simply pack their bags and go back.
‘Crushed Dream’
They had to accept the conditions and hope that the salary of €1,000 per month promised will help them reduce their debts. But even that dream was crushed.
Despite sporting the typical and distinctive Bolt and Wolt jackets and backpacks, most delivery drivers are not directly employed by either of the two food delivery platforms.
Most third country nationals are employed by an agency that is subcontracted by the two big platforms, meaning that the driver is paid by his agency, which is paid by Bolt and Wolt.
Recruitment agencies employ thousands of food couriers to have enough of them spread across the islands so that Bolt and Wolt can offer the shortest possible delivery times from any restaurant to any location.
Furthermore, according to the second contract, the agency is not burdened to pay each driver for each hour they work. Despite promising a gross annual salary of around €10,000 for a 40-hour work week, the contract specifies that working hours only count when the courier is making deliveries. For the rest of the time they spend waiting between deliveries, they are not paid. With the number of couriers on the road, it was practically impossible for workers to keep up with 40 hours of deliveries a week.
Meanwhile, the agency only has to pay for the number of deliveries, which remains the same, no matter how many drivers there are.
Therefore it is able to employ hundreds of drivers more than the market needs, because its only added costs will be the motor and the equipment it provides to the couriers.
This means that Bolt and Wolt are able to offer a much more competitive service while the agency earns recruitment fees from hundreds of Indian workers, while paying them per delivery, not hourly, and still pocketing the -less half each delivery charge.
There are also too many couriers employed for the number of daily deliveries. Consequently, during the week a courier gets to deliver only 10 to 12 orders a day and on Saturday he can do up to 20, if he is lucky.
The courier spends the rest of the time waiting outside restaurants for hours on end, hoping to hear his phone order. No matter how many hours he spends idle.
When they started working, the couriers quickly realized that they would have to work exorbitant hours to manage even half of the promised monthly salary.
‘€600 per month after 11 hours a day from Monday to Sunday’
Four couriers said Times of Malta that after working 11 hours a day from Monday to Sunday for a month, they only managed to earn around €600.
Couriers are paid in cash or through Revolut. Documents seen by Times of Malta show that while the monthly payslips were issued with a salary corresponding to the figures in the contract, the cash sent or given to the courier was much less.
“When at the end of the month I saw that my salary did not match the figure in my contract, I asked the company why and they told me that the winter months are a low season and that the salary will definitely improve as summer approaches,” said a former courier.
The couriers said that after a few months they couldn’t take it anymore and quit, only to receive a letter from RecruitGiant’s lawyers who told them they owed the company €4,000 for breach of contract.
The lawyers told them that since they resigned after the month’s probationary period had passed and before the contract expired, they were bound by law to pay the employer half of the agreed salary for the year. They were told to pay within two weeks and if they failed to do so, the company would take legal proceedings against them.
“I felt that my life was over,” recalled one of the couriers.
‘Struggle to survive, repay debts’
“I only had money to live on and pay the rent and I was already struggling to pay back my huge debts, and then they told me I owed them all that money. It was horrible.”
Some couriers have filed police reports about the incidents but have yet to hear back. Other couriers claimed that this practice is used by other recruitment agencies.
Questions sent to RecruitGiant on Friday have yet to be answered, despite a reminder yesterday morning.
However, last April, the CEO of RecruitGiant Tomas Mikalauskas had complained to him Times of Malta that the recruitment sector is highly unregulated and lacks enforcement.
He said that after the Department for Industrial and Labor Relations issued recommendations for recruitment agencies last year, his company tried to comply with the law but the workers were quitting because they preferred to work in unregulated conditions and he was losing drivers faster than he could catch up. of them.
Mikalauskas had said that it had become impossible to hire a courier legally but that he would refuse to stop following the law, and he had asked the authorities to strengthen enforcement.
Questions to RecruitGiant
• Why were the workers forced to sign a second contract if they had already signed an employment contract? And why were they not informed about the change in terms and conditions?
• Why would you change the terms and conditions, knowing that they made a decision to relocate their whole lives based on a contract that promised them better conditions?
• Did you expect them to refuse to sign the second contract if they had problems with it, after they have relocated to a foreign country?
• Also, why were they never paid the salary that was promised in the contracts?
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