An update on the Deliveroo organising effort in Leeds:

In early February, management at Leeds Deliveroo managed to infiltrate a WhatsApp group being used by our members to organise other riders.

Upon finding the names of key organisers Deliveroo acted immediately. Five riders had their full time fixed hours removed and are now only given minimal shifts with one days notice and limited to a few hours a week. Two other riders have been sacked completely.

Please support this hardship fund for the seven Deliveroo couriers. They have lost their livelihoods because they have been organising Deliveroo riders for better pay and conditions.

Their hardship is immediate. Two riders have kids, all have rent and bills to pay, and as ‘self employed’ all have a tax bill coming in three months that most were expecting to pay from money earned in the last quarter.

Deliveroo’s actions are a direct attack on the right to join a union.

Our union, the IWW, is standing by us. But the IWW is a small union with limited funds and we need your support, now more than ever.

Money raised from this crowdfund will go directly to a hardship fund for the seven workers that have fallen victim to Deliveroo’s anti-union attack.

The IWW is bringing onboard one of the sacked riders to lead on the dispute with Deliveroo and is contributing much needed cash to the hardship fund.

This is the gig economy in action.

We need your help now.

Please donate anything you can afford to our hardship fund.

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date with the campaign.”

For anyone who’s actually in the area, Leeds and Bradford wobblies and friends will be out in the city centre talking to Deliveroo workers and other precarious workers in Leeds city centre from 12 onwards on Sunday 26th.

On a related note, if anyone’s around in West Yorkshire on March 10th, there’s going to be a fundraiser at Kinsley Coronation Working Men’s Club for the three school cleaners who were sacked for going on strike there.