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Deliveroo riders will turn off their apps this evening (January 18) and refuse to deliver food to the people of Bristol.

It’s the latest act in a long-running industrial dispute between the app company and the people who work as self-employed delivery riders.

Apps like Deliveroo and Uber Eats have radically transformed the way in which the restaurant and food industry works in cities like Bristol - with thousands of dishes from scores of restaurants across the city available with just a few taps of a smartphone.

We are all now so used to having everything delivered to our door - be it supermarket shopping, Internet purchases or the food that lets us dine out on a night in - that many of us are probably guilty of rarely sparing a thought for the person who knocks on the door to bring us our evening meal.

But what is life like for a Deliveroo rider when we have grabbed the food, muttered a quick ‘thank you’ and closed the door?

And why are they going on strike?

We caught up with one rider as he pedalled the streets of Bristol on a bitterly cold night.

Mark, not his real name, was on call in the city centre when we started talking to him. The 24-year-old spoke to us as he waited, cycled, delivered and cycled again.

How do you get paid and how much?

“I’ve been a Deliveroo rider for almost 18 months. It’s important that people realise it is all piecemeal work. Initially we were paid a flat rate per delivery with a higher rate on the weekend.

“Then Deliveroo expanded the zones in Bristol where it was possible to make an order to be delivered to.

“Initially, they didn’t put up the fees when they introduced that expanded area. The last summer, they brought in a base fee and an extra payment for deliveries where you have to cycle further away.

“The base fee could change every month. At the moment, it’s something like £3.87, and with the delivery further away it can rise to £4.50. We were getting closer to £4.50 and seeing it up to £6 sometimes, but now riders are seeing it staying at around £4.”

"The way they calculate how much you are going to be paid, it’s completely untransparent. It doesn’t scale by distance that much, it’s really weird. What we are asking for is a clear distance-based fee of £1 per mile.

From Easton to Ashton Gate would be the worst...

Deliveroo riders log-on and wait to be sent an order. But because they are self-employed, they can decline it. The order is assigned to a rider within milliseconds of being placed, by the Deliveroo computer, but no one is quite sure how...

"No one is sure how their algorithm works, and they are not going to tell us.

"When I set up, I log in and they (Deliveroo) know where I am. When a job comes in, it offers you a pick up from a certain restaurant and shows you where the delivery will be dropped, and how much you will be paid for that. You can accept it or not.

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"Before, they wouldn’t show the address, but now they are showing the address to deliver to, because of the pressure of the riders and the union.

"People do choose to not accept a delivery offer. If it is really far away and you’re not going to be paid for it that well, then yeah you decline. I’m not going to go halfway across the city on my bike for just a few pence more, especially at busy times when another order that’s nearer might well come in soon.

"The vast majority of the restaurants we pick up from are in the city centre. The furthest out we go to pick up is maybe Horfield in the north, the Bath Road in Brislington, or Easton.

"A particularly rubbish job to accept might be when you’re in the city centre and it comes in that you have an order to pick up in Easton to deliver to somewhere like Ashton Gate. That would be not exactly great.

No one likes to be kept waiting

You've hit the order confirmation button and get an estimated time for your delivery. But that comes and goes and your food still hasn't left the restaurant. That's annoying - but spare a thought for the Deliveroo rider...

"There are some restaurants which are really bad for us turning up to collect the food and it isn’t ready.

"Sometimes you might be waiting there ten or 20 minutes in the end.

(Image: Bristol Post)

"No matter how smart Deliveroo’s algorithm is, there’s always going to be waiting time - that’s the nature of the way the food industry works.

"The problem is that Deliveroo are shoving the cost of that time onto us, not sharing it.

"We get paid per delivery, so if we are standing waiting to pick up an order, then we are effectively doing our job but not getting paid for it.

"Deliveroo is an anomaly with this - other firms like them pay people for that wait.

"Sometimes we’re told it will take two minutes, and it ends up 20 minutes. It’s hard to know.

"We can reject the job at any time before we get the food, and sometimes we do - another rider will be able to come along soon after and take it on.

"I might do this because if I’m waiting 20 minutes for someone’s food to be ready, that’s 20 minutes in which I could easily do another job.

"That risk is put onto the riders, and this sort of thing happens extremely often.

"I can only speak for myself but I know how the fast food industry works and it’s very labour intensive but often those restaurants and takeaways just don’t have enough staff so I understand how hard it is for them and why they might not have the food ready.

"I’m never going to get angry with them for making me wait, because I know ultimately it’s not their fault. It’s low paid work in the fast food industry and there are a lot of companies making a a lot of money."

And then there are the hills

Bristol contains the steepest street in Britain, and there aren't many places which are flat. With students making up a hefty percentage of Deliveroo customers, the trek up to the student world of Redland and Clifton is very real for Deliveroo's cyclists.

"Bristol is pretty tough to deliver in. Going from the centre up St Michael’s Hill or Constitution Hill, to Redland or Clifton Village is really, really hard. Even Park Street isn’t my favourite one.

"The hills can be tough. Deliveroo say they factor in stuff about hills in how they calculate cost, but that’s not really clear to us.

"Some people do the job because they really love cycling or they love riding their motorbike, but most people do it because they have to earn a wage. No one likes cycling up the hills though."

It's a dangerous job

Bristol Live reports on crashes on the roads of Bristol on a daily basis, but one of the most shocking incidents of 2018 was when a Deliveroo cyclist was dragged along the road under the wheels of a van close to the Wills Memorial building.

(Image: Dave Betts)

His life was saved by a combination of a passing doctor and a man who jumped into the van, brought it to a stop and then incredibly, organised a crowd of people to gently lift the van off the cyclist's neck.

On the busy, relentless and unforgiving roads of Bristol, people on bicycles are very vulnerable vulnerable - while drivers have a metal box fitted with air bags and crumple zones to protect them, the average person on a bicycle has nothing but the clothes they put on that morning.

As Mark arrives to pick up his next job from Montpelier - to deliver via a quick spin down to the city centre, it's a constant thought.

"The ride I’m on at the moment is quite a nice one - it’s from Cheltenham Road down to the city centre and it’s nice and quick, the road is nicely paved, and there are no hills. This is a good order for me. Safety is a constant worry for all Deliveroo cyclists.

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"I’ve had a lot of close calls, but thankfully I’ve never come off my bike yet. I know many Deliveroo cyclists that have. Maybe there’s something on the road they hit, like a pothole or it’s icy. They might have been clipped by a vehicle, or something else happens. You might be out of action for three days or something.

"Deliveroo does offer some injury pay, but only if you are actually doing an order at the time you suffer that injury. It’s completely bonkers.

"So if you have completed an order which involves riding to Bedminster, say, and then you have completed that order and are back on call and have a crash on the way back to the city centre to get ready for the next order, then you are not entitled to injury pay. I know a lot of people who have had issues trying to actually claim the cover."

What about the tips?

A series of Bristol Live investigations last year uncovered the practice of restaurants that were requiring waiting staff to pay a percentage of their tables' total bill back to the restaurant, as a way of sharing tips with kitchen staff, even if those tables didn't tip. That practice is controversial, and was even raised in Parliament.

But out on the streets, and at the front doors of Bristol's hungry Deliveroo customers, tipping the cold cyclist handing over your evening meal is often the last thing people do.

"People who order from Deliveroo are able to tip us at the point of making that order, and that money does come to us.

"If I see that someone has included a tip in the order, I make a point of thanking them for it. It’s usually just a quid or something.

"They can also always pay us cash at the door when we deliver, but few people do. Fewer people than that include a tip on their phone. You’ll get a few tips in a week, but you can’t really rely on it to get anything as a boost to your income.

"Tipping is used by businesses in hospitality as a way to get out of paying staff a proper wage, and I don’t want my pay to be reliant on getting tips.

"One of the things we are asking for is for Deliveroo to give customers the ability to add a tip after they’ve received the order. At the moment if you order food, you can’t do that - once you’ve paid, that’s it. If you want to tip, then you have to give cash at the door, and a lot of people don’t do that.

"It would be really good if Deliveroo did do that, because it would give another opportunity for people to tip after they’ve received the service.

What are customers like?

"Customers are pretty much great. There is an issue that sometimes it can be difficult to contact customers’ houses, and while we’re waiting for them to answer the door, again that’s time we’re not being paid. It’s another way Deliveroo gets us to work for free.

"If I could say one thing to customers it would be to support us. If you want to give a tip, that would be great, but we want as much support as we can get.

"There is a strike fund set up ahead of the strike, because if you think about it, all of us logging off our apps on a Friday evening at what is often the busiest time of the week - that’s going to mean we just won’t get paid, and we will all suffer from doing that. So if people want to support they can donate to the strike fund, and come down to College Green from 6pm to support us in person.

Are there just too many Deliveroo riders?

"Because it is piecemeal work, one of the big issues we face is that Deliveroo are over-hiring riders.

"They are a courier company, so the more riders they hire the more money they make because the more they are able to fulfill orders, but because they are recruiting so many people, in the end everyone’s wages go down. It doesn’t bother Deliveroo.

"On a day to day basis, I’m still enjoying it - well, I like everyone around, the other riders. There’s a nice community of riders. But it’s not something I’d want to do forever. If this is something people are feeding their families from working at, then that would be a huge challenge."

What do Deliveroo say?

"Deliveroo is proud that it creates well-paid flexible work across Bristol which allows riders to choose when and where to work allowing them to be their own bosses. Deliveroo listens carefully to rider feedback and work hard to address any issues raised in our regular help hubs," a spokesperson said.

“In Bristol, riders earn on average well over £10 an hour and earnings rose throughout 2018. Obviously we are disappointed this action was announced by a small group of riders, but we will continue to engage across the Bristol, improving the rider experience at every chance we get."