Riders as slaves: Former Uber manager pleads guilty to 1 year and 4 months in prison for gangmastering.

Let's not make her a martyr or a scapegoat: but the plea bargain of the former Uber manager, Gloria Bresciani, to 1 year and 4 months of imprisonment (suspended sentence), with a fine of 21 thousand euros, marks a step forward in trying to normalize the world of riders, living symbols of all the contradictions of the gig economy. La Bresciani was charged with gangmastering in the Milan trial stemming from the investigation by Magistrate Paolo Storari and the Financial Police Unit of the Guardia di Finanza into the modern-day slavery-like working conditions of delivery riders, which in May 2020 led to the Italian branch of the US delivery giant being placed under special administration. The plea bargain to avoid further trouble, ratified by Judge Mariolina Panasiti, effectively confirms the validity of the investigation.

Thanks to the work of the investigators, a real market of gangmastering of ridersThese riders were recruited primarily from reception centers by labor brokerage firms. They were then paid piecework, just 3 euros per hour, and if they broke the rules, they were punished with reduced tips and wages. Hundreds of riders filed civil lawsuits during the trial and withdrew after receiving compensation from Uber Italy amounting to half a million euros, 5 each. Furthermore, In 2021, Giuseppe Moltini, one of the managers of the labor supply intermediary company, was sentenced to three years and eight months. Furthermore, preliminary hearing judge Teresa De Pascale converted the seizure of €500 into compensation of €10 each for 44 delivery workers (a total of €440). Danilo Donnini, a partner in the Flash Road City intermediary company, pleaded guilty to two years, and Leonardo Moltini to three years.

And here we come to the second aspect of this plea bargain. The way these poor riders' delivery activities are organized and paid demonstrates, if proof were needed, that these companies are unsustainable. For one fundamental reason: what they offer isn't work. If anything, it's just poorly paid "odd jobs," with no health, social security, or insurance coverage, and no shred of the thousand victories won by workers around the world after centuries of civil battles. An indecent step backwards in the era of unemployment, its loss of meaning, significance, identity, and therefore of value, including economic value. Work is wiped out, and those who exploit it turn it into billion-dollar businesses, in this case under the banner of the wildly popular food.

If we take a closer look at the three protagonists of the new gig economy (literally "odd job economy"), perhaps over-indulgently celebrated, we discover a wealth of cunning, waste, and even gross injustice. The major players in the sector are international giants (nothing to do with Made in Italy, aka food par excellence): they're called Deliveroo, Foodora, JustEat, and of course, the gig economy leader, Uber, couldn't be left out of the club, with its Uber EATS culinary label. How do the food delivery lords make tons of money? Technology, innovation, smart, even ingenious ideas relative to the market's potential: no objection. Except that to these prerequisites for a good business, one must add the essential ingredient: worthless labor. Unrecognized as such, it's wasted and devalued to the point of failure, beyond which there's only pure and simple slavery.

Finally, a word about the third wheel in the realm of home-delivered food: the consumer. Here too, food polytheism reigns supreme, and everyone freely decides how, where, and what to eat: so no objections. But are we sure that by ordering grilled vegetables or Indian-spiced skewers delivered by food delivery drivers to our homes and offices, we aren't losing—and wasting—something essential about food? For example, the pleasure of sharing it with a cheerful group of people away from home, or of preparing it in the simplest, most authentic, and healthiest way we know how: with our own hands, and without wasting anything.

Cover image source: Ansa

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