Amidst a large crowd, one man in the sea of protest signs brandishes a banner. His tattoo, clearly legible across his forearm, reads: “La lutte continue!” (“The struggle continues!”). It’s the slogan of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, who took to the streets of Toronto on May 15th in a 650-person solidarity march for couriers working for the app-based delivery service Foodora.
The company’s couriers, recognizable by their friendly fuschia attire, have kick-started one in a wave of movements pushing to unionize workers classified as “independent contractors” under the gig economy.
“I’ve watched my friends in hospital beds, picking themselves off of the road, getting glass out of their wounds, wondering if they’ll be able to make rent having lost a week’s work on the front of a car”, courier Thomas McKechnie told an impassioned crowd during a similar demonstration on May 1st.
